


Auryn

by nic



Category: Earth 2, Earth 2 (TV 1994)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, M/M, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:16:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 39,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nic/pseuds/nic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fate of the planet lies in the hands of a small boy and the one man who can save his destiny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Auryn

**Author's Note:**

> Written in July 1998, for the "Who is Uly's Father?" fic challenge.
> 
> ORIGINAL NOTES:  
> I must acknowledge and thank Robin C. for her editing skills on this. Also thanks to Margaret C. and Melanie M. for their incredible feedback upon reading this. 
> 
> Disclaimer: The characters and situations contained within are the property of Universal/Amblin Entertainment. References to "The Neverending Story" also belong to Michael Ende and creators of the film. No copyright infringement is intended.
> 
>  
> 
> **Afterword - August 2012**  
> I wrote this when I was a teenager, in the 90's, when slash in this fandom (and most) was still underground. As far as I know, I was the only person writing Alonzo/Morgan, and this was my first attempt. I loved them together but thought it wouldn't be accepted by the audience. 
> 
> In retrospect, certain parts of this story come across as homophobic. I apologise in advance for that. 
> 
> There's a lot that could be changed, or re-written, and part of me is tempted to do that. Certain characterisations are extremely off. But this was teenaged me, exploring my version of human emotions while trying to world-build. There's good and bad in this story and I keep it archived here, for the good, and for the memories.

A thousand million years ago, long before the hand of God had swept over a raging, fiery planet and created life, and long before the transformation of another planet's inner core into self-awareness, there was a comet.  A great, majestic comet, a comet spun delicately of ice with its sweeping tail streaming for thousands of kilometres behind.

It was travelling the cosmos.  It had a destiny, a purpose, yet the comet did not know this, merely content to travel as it did.  It was never aware that its motion would catastrophically affect not only an infant planetoid, but the fates of beings not destined to be born for millions of years.

After travelling the endless spaces between light and dark (for this early in the evolution of the galaxy, whole stars were few and far between) the comet was drawn towards the whirling forces of a large solar system.  Unable to stop its course, the comet careened towards the sun and its end was near.

Except it didn't strike the sun.  A massive planet, eighth from the centre of the system, had the misfortune to orbit directly into the comet's path.   Already, this planet was quite special despite the common maelstrom of raging volcanoes and fires and the hammering of cataclysmic thunderstorms.  Nothing definable as life yet existed, and still, the presence was there.  Many would call it magic, for somehow, veins of power ran through the planet itself in delicate balance, perfectly attuned to its unique orbit and spin.

It was a mighty sphere, the largest in its system, and bore no moons to adversely affect the attuned tunnels of power across the land.  It had a great future before it - a future that was about to be decimated by an innocent comet's arrival.

The nuclear explosion that followed almost tore the planet apart.

It screamed - almost a psychic cry of agony - as the comet struck deep into its core.  Matter was ejected in every direction and a huge chunk of the planet itself was torn away.

It took the planet another million years to recover.  And when it was finally spherical again, when the swirling of fragments had coalesced into something recognisable as a planetoid shape, the power veins were no longer so perfectly aligned.  For it had two new moons which orbited it, moons that had arisen from the debris of the decimated planet.  Moons which caused slight fluctuations in the planet's energies as they moved.  The crossing of the moons was the worst, for then the forces of power directly opposed themselves.

Yet from an outsider's point of view, these small disturbances did not matter so much.  For there was another part of the original planet's mass that was not present, a part that had spun far, far away, hopelessly out of control and well beyond the gravity field.  It, too, possessed these veins of power.

Somehow, it was drawn into the orbit of the sun.  It passed other planets without consequence for they did not have the ability of corporeal energy.  When the asteroid returned to its mother, however, the troubles were a thousand times more devastating.

So the comet, which expired from existence with the fateful impact, left its legacy in the form of an asteroid.  An asteroid whose purpose was to return every ten thousand years (as its convoluted orbit took it) and wreak havoc on its mother below, each time, a fraction closer than before.  To warp the very fabric of space and time....

 ***

John Danziger inhaled a deep breath of air and closed his eyes, feeling the sweet touch of morning sunlight on his weathered face.  Birds were chirping merrily and scents of early summer were filling his nostrils with an entirely pleasing flavour.  This, he decided, moments such as this appreciation of a beautiful morning, made everything on G889 worth it.

His eyes popped open to the sound of laughter he knew very well.  Another pleasant sight graced his eyes, of Devon Adair chasing through a field of flowers not too far from their camp.  Danziger surmised that her son Ulysses was with her, he could make out a smaller rustling through tall weeds to Devon's left.  He smiled.

He had never met a more devoted mother than Devon Adair, he decided.  She had literally moved the earth for that boy, thrown away any semblance of a normal life for Uly's sake.  It was a feeling Danziger knew well, having done much the same for his own daughter.

Seating himself down to enjoy the morning sunlight (not to watch Devon, he strictly reminded himself) Danziger found himself wondering, not for the first time, who Ulysses' father was.  Devon had never spoken of it and he had never dared press her for the information.  As the friends drew closer, Danziger had figured that she would one day tell him of her own accord.

But that had not yet happened.  They knew so much about each other - in such a small group of people, it was possible to know almost everyone quite well - yet no one really knew much about Uly's heritage at all.  Yale would probably know, but he would never volunteer the information as every member of Eden Advance understood.

Had Devon been hurt in the past?, Danziger found himself wondering.  There had to be a reason she kept part of herself so secret and hidden.  Danziger could only hope that one day, she would feel close enough to him to be able to share the truth.

He thought they'd have become closer after the trauma she endured when she nearly died.  When the group had released Devon from cold sleep and Julia healed her, Devon had looked deep into his eyes and the gentle hand hold had been almost a promise.  But since that moment, Danziger had been kept at an arm's length, still the close friend but nothing more.

Danziger consoled himself with the fact that she just needed more time, time to heal and fully integrate herself with the group again.  She'd been out of it for three long weeks and it was taking her a while to recover.  Briefly, Danziger wondered if she should be running around with Uly but figured that quality time with her son could only help.

"Where are you?" Danziger heard Devon call as she ploughed through the longer grass, moving it aside.  "Kathy?"

Kathy?  Danziger suddenly sat up much straighter.  Had he really heard Devon say the name Kathy, or was the breeze carrying her words to him distorting the sound?  Surely Devon was playing with Uly, maybe True was there too and they were role-playing.  Yeah, that was it, he decided as he heard Devon call the name Kathy yet again.

"Kathryn!  There you are!" There was relief as well as laughter in Devon's voice as she held out her arms and a small figure ran into them.  Danziger's jaw dropped.  He scrambled to his feet and took a few unsteady steps forward.  Devon was embracing a little girl, perhaps four years old, with wild curly blonde hair and a sweet chubby face.

Devon whirled Kathy around and the girl squealed with joy.

"Devon?" Danziger called out, unable to believe what he was witnessing.  Was this some kind of VR game or something?  But no, Danziger knew he was wide awake and in full control of all his senses.

Apparently not hearing him, Devon continued playing with Kathy.  For a moment, Danziger was spellbound as he looked at the happy pair; upon moving closer he could see that Kathy was obviously related to Devon for they shared the same strong facial features.  But who was the little girl, and how did she get there?

Now only metres from Devon, Danziger expected her to look up at any  moment and acknowledge his proximity.  That didn't happen.  She was completely oblivious to his presence, even when he shouted her name again.  Finally, Danziger laid a hand on Devon's shoulder.

That got her attention.  She froze and turned, looking towards him, right through him, it seemed.  Danziger was beginning to feel very nervous when she smiled and said, "John!" and then Devon and Kathy, quite simply, disappeared.

Danziger was left alone in the field with one arm outstretched, gaping like a fool.  After a few moments, the more rational side of his mind began to take over and he decided it must have been a practical joke played on him by someone who'd rigged up a VR projection unit.  "True?" he called, knowing that only his own daughter would dare do such a thing.

There was no response.  Danziger made a quick search of the area but revealed nothing.  He was still searching the long grass when Devon wandered up to him from the direction of the camp.  Her long hair was tousled and it was obvious she had only just got up.  
"Morning, John," she greeted him cheerily.  "Lost something?"

"Ah..."  There was no way he could tell her what she'd seen, Danziger decided.  "Do you know if the kids are up yet?"

"True and Uly are eating breakfast," Devon replied, eyeing Danziger carefully.  "Far as I know, Uly crawled out of bed about ten minutes ago and went to wake True up."  Mirth momentarily glinted in Devon's eyes.  "I believe he got his revenge for a trick she played on him last week by letting your tent down as she slept."

At the obvious alarm on Danziger's face, Devon laid a hand on his shoulder and soothed, "Don't worry, Uly promised he'd return your tent to its proper state.  Now how about you tell me what you're out here searching for?"

Think fast, Danziger, he told himself.  "I thought I heard something."

"Something?"  Devon's tone was dubious and Danziger cringed inside.  
"It doesn't matter, Adair.  I must've been mistaken."  Purposefully, he turned away from the field and back to camp.  "Breakfast time.  Coming?" he asked gruffly.

She fell into step beside him and they endured a tense silence all the way back to join the others for breakfast.  During the meal, Danziger performed a quick head count and noted that everyone was present, in fact, it was almost impossible for someone to have been in the field with Danziger only a few minutes earlier.

That left only one very disturbing possibility in Danziger's mind: the Dreamplane and the Terrians.  Despite all he'd learned about them, Danziger still didn't trust G889's natives and although he'd never admit it to anyone, he was a little afraid of their ability to get inside people's heads.

But they'd never reached Danziger before and it made no sense to be suddenly shown a vision of Devon with a little girl he knew didn't exist.  Alonzo had once alluded that the Terrians showed him the past, but not the future.  And besides, Danziger's 'vision' was nothing like the experiences Alonzo, Uly and even Devon had described.  No, this had been very different.

Danziger sighed.  Maybe he'd had too much sun or not enough sleep.  Or maybe he was just going crazy.  Danziger resolved to put the moment out of his mind.  Only days later would he realise how important his vision had been, and what tragic consequences arose from his having ignored it.

 ***

Ulysses Adair was flying.  He laughed with joy, leaning forward over the great white beast below him and grinned from ear to ear.  The clouds raced past at impossible speeds and Uly pumped one hand in the air while shouting happily.  Around his chest the medallion gleamed with a special magic, the silver and gold intertwined snakes sparkling in the sunlight.  It was called Auryn, a name that Uly thought most beautiful and appropriate.

"Where to now?" Uly's dragon asked him.

"Down, Falkor, I want to see the tops of the trees!"  Again Uly laughed as Falkor took a huge plunge towards the ground beneath them.  Squinting, Uly could make out a lonely figure on a horse galloping across the plains.  He waved.

But the figure did not wave back.  She sat with a frown on her face, her arms crossed yet she did not fall off of the horse as it slowed.

"Hey Atreyu!" Uly yelled in greeting.

True's scowl only deepened.  "I'm sick of being Atreyu!" she complained.  "How come you always get to be Bastian?  And why do we always start the game here?"

"Lighten up, you're a mighty warrior, remember?" Uly replied.  By now his dragon had landed and he was side by side with the girl dressed in Indian-style clothing.  "And what about your name?  True, Atreyu, it sounds the same, see!"  Uly laughed at his own cleverness and the sound made True want to get off her horse and punch him.

Instead, she reached across and neatly grabbed the medallion from around his neck.

"Hey, give that back!" Uly protested.  "I'm the one who gets to make the wishes."

"Not this time," countered True.  "I wish us back to the start-"  Her words were cut off as Uly lunged at her in a desperate attempt to retrieve Auryn and the two fell to the ground, suddenly fighting each other in the way only children can.

"I'm gonna give you a blood nose, Ulysses Adair," True grunted between breaths.  Uly had been annoying her for weeks and the recent incident with the tent had topped everything off.

"Get off me, True!" he shouted back.  She was bigger than him and a lot stronger too, so there was no doubt who'd win this fight.  And all too soon, it was over, True laughing cruelly as she held the medallion aloft.  "Now we're going to restart the game."

But Uly wasn't paying attention to her anymore.  He sat quietly on the ground, his face white.  True hadn't really hurt him but suddenly he felt really weak.  "True," he began softly, "I don't feel so good."

"Oh no you don't," True replied self-righteously.  "I know your tricks and I'm not gonna fall for them this time."

"But True-"  Then Uly interrupted himself, holding his hand up.  To his horror, it appeared lighter in colour, almost translucent.  He could see the grass through his arm.

"Uly!" shrieked True as she saw what was happening and knew this wasn't part of any game.  Quickly she ripped of her VR gear and Uly's too, seeing the wild landscape of Fantastica dissolve into the equally wild landscape of G889.  "Julia, come quick!  Uly's hurt!"

Devon appeared even before the doctor arrived and was swiftly cradling her son, whose white face spoke volumes more than True's explanation could.

"I didn't mean to hurt him, we were just playing," True babbled, suddenly afraid and full of remorse.  "I didn't even hit him that hard!"  She sat close to Uly, not quite daring to take his hand but trying desperately to apologise with her eyes.

Julia's diaglove quickly revealed...nothing.  No physical changes at all were present in Uly's body and all he could tell them was that he felt tired and weak and his arm had disappeared for a moment.

Both adults were dubious about this fact even when True confirmed the story.  "We were in VR and his arm just vanished!" True protested.

"Which game were you playing?" Devon asked seriously.

"The Neverending Story," replied True.  "But it wasn't that, I know it!  Neither of us was doing any wishing at the time - I swear I didn't wish for Uly to disappear!"

"But you had Auryn," reminded Uly.  He stared at True, wishing he didn't feel so sick because then he would get up and biff her in the teeth because he was suddenly quite sure that she had wished him away.  That was the power that the medallion gave them.

"I didn't!" True protested tearfully.  "Uly, I wouldn't do that to you, not even if I was really really mad.  I'm sorry for fighting you but-"

Julia placed a calming hand on the distraught girl.  "It's not your fault.  I think Uly just got a little tired from all the playing he's been doing.  How about the pair of you take a break from VR and find something calmer to do this afternoon, okay?"

The two children reluctantly nodded and Julia pulled Devon aside for a quiet word.

"I wouldn't be worried, Devon.  I think Uly's just had a little too much VR today.  Some people can't handle it very well."

Devon frowned at her friend.  "Are you sure that's all it is?  He looked so pale when we got here...."  She returned her attention to her son and noticed that his cheeks were a lot more colourful.  His eyes were beginning to regain their mischievous sparkle.  "You could be right," Devon conceded.  She knew that she still worried about Uly way too much.

"I'll keep an eye on him if that makes you feel better," offered Julia.  She switched off her diaglove, confident that Uly was alright.

"Maybe I should keep him away from True for a while," Devon mused aloud.  "They keep fighting."

"That's only natural, Devon," Julia quickly reassured.  "It's a sign that they're becoming closer, more like siblings.  They'll sort it out eventually, I don't think there's any real animosity between them."

"You're sure about that?"

"Positive."  Julia smiled.  "Now what about you, Devon, how have you been feeling lately?"  
 

The two children watched the interchange, straining to overhear the words.  Suddenly, True's nose crinkled up.  "Did you hear that, Uly?  Ew!"

"What?"

"Julia called us siblings!"

Uly's mirroring disgust was immediately obvious.  "Yeah, I'd never want a girl like you to be my sister," he retorted, not having forgiven her for punching him earlier, even though it didn't hurt and True had apologised in a roundabout way.

"But what if my Dad marries your Mom?"  True sounded half-afraid, almost as if she believed the possibility could take place.

"Nah, it won't happen," Uly said casually as if he knew all about these types of things.  "You still have a mom somewhere so you don't need a new one."

"Well, what about you?"

"What about me?"

"Don't you have a dad somewhere?"

Uly frowned.  "I don't know," he revealed.

"Well, didn't you ever ask about it?"

His dispute with True forgotten, Uly became suddenly curious.  "No...I guess I never did."  He'd always had his mother around who gave him so much love, and Yale who was like a doting grandfather, so he'd never really considered a father missing from his life.  "I don't need a father anyway," he countered.

"It'd still be nice to know," True suggested, because now she, too, was curious.

"Yeah," agreed Uly.  "I'll have to ask Mom sometime.  Maybe she knows who he is."

Ulysses had no way of knowing how prophetic his words were.

 ***

The time was near.  G889 mustered all of its strength and reached out to the Dreamer, showing him things, telling him secrets, and laying the foundations for the revelations that were soon to come.  The Terrians, the messengers, did their best to translate the message into something that could be comprehended by the strange species.

The Dreamer would not understand just yet, but soon, soon it would all become clear, and then he would be able to take the steps that ensured not only his own survival, but that of the planet itself.

 ***

 

"Damn!" Alonzo swore as he sat up in bed, sweat pouring down his forehead.  It was a warm summer's night but it wasn't that which had caused him to perspire so much.  It was the dream.

"Alonzo?" came Julia's sleepy voice.  "What is it?  Were you dreaming again?"

"Yeah, a Terrian dream, I think."  He shook his head, trying to make sense of it all.  "What time is it?"

"Almost dawn," was the soft response.  "You want to talk about it?"  
Taking a deep breath, Alonzo sighed.  "I dunno.  It was really weird this one, I know the Terrians had an important message to give me but all I kept seeing were these two snakes."

"Snakes?" Julia asked dubiously.

"Yeah, snakes," replied Alonzo vehemently.  "Snakes and the spider tunnels.  I think the Terrians want us to go back to them."

"We can't do that," Julia instantly said, sitting up in bed.  "They're not safe, remember how Danziger got trapped..." '...and I got lost,' was the implied sentence tag.  Momentarily, Julia shivered as she remembered the feeling of absolute helplessness as she was transported across the planet.

"Well, the Terrians wouldn't show me them unless they had a really good reason," Alonzo countered.  "Maybe there are some new tunnels around here that are safe."

"Or maybe they're warning us away from them," Julia said darkly.  "Was there anything else in the dream?"

"No, not really," Alonzo answered, a distant expression on his handsome face as he tried to access the subconsciously implanted memories.  "Just a feeling of urgency, kinda like something big is gonna happen and we have to know how to be ready for it.  I don't know," he groaned.  "It wasn't as strong as a regular dream, you know?  It was a lot hazier."

Julia frowned.  Gently brushing aside a lock of Alonzo's hair that had fallen across his forehead (he needed a haircut, Julia decided) she asked him if he wanted to go back to sleep and see if the Terrians had anything more to show him.  Alonzo reluctantly agreed, but he dreamed of nothing more that night.  
 

Ulysses, too, dreamed of snakes but he at least knew what they were.  He'd gone to bed with questions of his father and dreamed of Auryn.  The two concepts were so unrelated that he never even considered a link between them.  He didn't understand that the Terrians were trying to show him the truth about himself in the only way they could.

 ***

Eden Advance moved on and as Devon strode in front of the group, determined to prove to Julia and Danziger that she was fully healed, she again returned her mind to the problem of the growing heat.  There was a suggestion sprouting in the back of her mind that they travel by night, and it was an idea Devon was warming too daily.

The only problem was she didn't know if they'd be able to sleep through the heat of the day, not with sunlight blazing down and awakening the primal need coded deep within the DNA of every person, telling them to wake up.  Sure, it was no trouble to settle down for a midday nap every so often, but to spend a few months of their lives as nocturnal creatures was not something Devon Adair would consider lightly.   It would mean a huge adjustment for everyone.

Thankfully, though, the summer days were not yet too hot and Devon knew she could put off the decision for another week, perhaps more if she was lucky.  She resolved to do so and then another troubling problem came back to haunt her.

Uly had asked about his father.  And that was something that Devon couldn't possibly explain.  Ulysses would never understand the truth she told him and Devon presumed he wouldn't accept it either.  Not even Yale knew Devon's secret, for she had guarded it close to her heart all of these years.  It was either keep it private or have a harrowing investigation opened, one that a young Devon hadn't wanted when she first discovered she was pregnant and one that this Devon had put far behind herself.

Perhaps when Uly was older, Devon consoled herself, she could tell him.  But at only nine years of age, Devon knew that Ulysses was far too young to comprehend something that she herself barely understood and had never been able to rationalise.

That one event had shaped Devon's entire future.  Since then, she'd never been involved with a man, never allowed herself to get close to anyone.  Still, Devon never regretted her actions and choices.  She didn't allow herself to because everything (except for the crash) had turned out so well and now she was living on G889, the magic place she had dreamed of for years.  Whether it was Sheppard or some other subconscious calling, Devon Adair knew that she was where she was supposed to be.  
 

The group was passing by a relatively inconspicuous mountain when Alonzo called a stop.  Glad for the rest, Devon agreed and called everyone together to hear what Alonzo had to say.

"I dreamed of this place," he announced first up.  Julia glared at him and Alonzo quickly turned to her and explained, "I didn't remember until just now, but I've seen this mountain before.  It's important somehow, I don't know how I can explain it but I think we need to go there."

Uly stepped forward, a strange expression on his face.  "It's the crucible."

Devon was visibly shocked.  She wasn't aware that her son even knew words like that.  "Ulysses-"

"The Terrians told me," he said simply.  "This is the place where it all happens."

"Where what all happens?" Yale asked urgently.  "Ulysses, it is very important that you tell us what you know."

The little boy shrugged.  "I don't know that much, really.  Something big is gonna happen here and we have to stick around for it.  That's all."

"Do you have any idea what this big something is going to be?"  When no answer from Uly was forthcoming, Devon turned to Alonzo, pleading with him with her eyes.  "Another kind of Mooncross?"

Alonzo had no answers to give her.  "I'm sorry Devon, but I can't explain it."

Morgan Martin, who was not only tired but irritated by the recent heat, spoke up.  "We shouldn't stop just because of a feeling.  Otherwise we're never going to get to New Pacifica!"

Devon spun and glared at him, the annoyance in his voice was infectious.  "And what if the Terrians need Uly to do something and he's not here?  What if he gets sick again?"

"Woah, Adair, calm down," said Danziger as he placed a soothing hand on her arm.  "Morgan's just voicing what we're all feeling - we can't ask how high every time the Terrians tell us to jump.  And we can't afford to be stopping all the time - look at how much ground we've lost already and we've only got another year to reach New Pacifica."

There was silence for a few moments until Alonzo interrupted. "I should have told you about my dream earlier, Dev, but I also saw those tunnels again.  I think they're important."

"Maybe they're going to take us to New Pacifica," said Bess optimistically.  "That could be what the Terrians want to show us."

Devon sighed.  She looked around at the group of people before her, so full of different opinions and beliefs; none that were more valid than anyone else's.  Yet it was her decision to make, for these people had put their trust in her.

"We're stopped now," she finally announced.  "Why don't we take a rest break and scout around for a few hours, we can stay here overnight if necessary.  If we find anything important around the mountain, or hear from the Terrians," she added as almost an afterthought, "then we'll stay for a while.  At the babble of protesting voices Devon held up a hand.  "' 1 d that we need to continue on to New Pacifica as fast as possible and we shouldn't delay."  She firmly pushed the thoughts of Uly's health from her mind.  "However, we need to trust the Terrians because they understand this world much better than we do."

There was a low mumble of assent and Devon smiled brightly at the group, faking a cheerfulness she did not feel.  "So do I have any volunteers?  Alonzo?"

"I'll go," offered Morgan, stepping forward boldly and ignoring the muted gasps of surprise.  He was determined to prove that there was absolutely nothing special about this particular mountain.  Morgan was simply sick to death of travelling and wanted the journey to be over with as fast as possible.

He had another reason for volunteering, too.  If what Alonzo and the others had said about the tunnels was true, then Morgan considered it his duty to investigate and prove that they could be used to get to New Pacifica.  He'd face almost anything to end the endless (in his opinion) journey!

"Alright," Devon said dubiously, "Alonzo and Morgan, that's one team."  She knew the two men were friends and didn't think anyone else could really handle Morgan on a scouting trip already fraught with prejudices.  "Anyone else?"

Danziger and Magus headed up the second team, Baines and Julia forming the third.  Devon herself wanted to go but Julia had recommended that she not over-exert herself just yet.  Devon was placated with the idea of setting up another camp as the teams split the mountain into three distinct areas to be surveyed.

"If anyone finds a cave, I want to be notified immediately," Devon instructed as they left, Danziger saluting cheekily.  Momentarily Devon smiled back at him - he was the only one who could get away with that and it warmed her heart.   Maybe he would be the first man she let into her heart since Uly's birth.

 ***

Cautiously, Morgan and Alonzo approached the mouth of the cave.  "Shouldn't we check in with Devon first?" Morgan suggested, a little nervously.  Alonzo waived aside his hesitation.

"If it's anything special then we'll give her a call.  There's no sense in jumping every time we find a tunnel."  The pair were scouting the northern slope which had been hidden from the view of Eden Advance and had seen several openings into the mountain from a distance.  Now they had reached the first entrance and were debating whether or not to enter it.

Ignoring Morgan's hesitation, Alonzo strode confidently into the cave.  And stopped dead in his tracks, causing the already-on-edge Morgan to bump into him.  Alonzo whistled under his breath in amazement.  "Spiders," he said.

"Spiders?"  There was a quavering in Morgan's voice.  He looked up.  Alonzo was right.  There were spiders, and there were spiders everywhere.  Neither man had ever seen so many in one place before.

"What is this, some kind of nexus?" wondered Morgan aloud.

"You might just be right," Alonzo responded as he heard the familiar whooshing sound of the tunnels and the entire area filled with a blinding light.  "That's a powerful one!"

Cautiously stepping deeper into the cave, Alonzo tilted his head to one side.  To his amazement, there was a low humming that vibrated throughout the opening and quite possibly, through the whole mountain as well.  "Do you feel that?" he asked Morgan.

Morgan nodded.  He peered deeper inside, noticing not only the numerous spiderwebs but Morganite embedded into the walls like rivers of fire.  They were glowing brightly.  "What is this place?" he wondered aloud.

Having no answer, Alonzo was silent.  He was completely aware of the energies running through this place, it was as if the entire mountain was a focal point of G889's potential: this was a place that quite possibly held it all together, or was part of a vast network of such sites.  The thought filled Alonzo with awe.  He noticed a spider crawling across his shoe and rapidly kicked it off, realising that the many spiders were probably paramount to keeping the energy balance right.

A haunting moaning slowly became audible above the electric hums and Morgan stiffened, knowing the sound.  "The Terrians..." he breathed, keeping his voice low.  Alonzo nodded and then turned to face the exact spot on the rock wall before him from which a Terrian burst.

Fearfully, Morgan watched as Alonzo approached the Terrian slowly, reaching out with one hand.  The Terrian allowed the contact and suddenly everything shifted for Alonzo and he was on the Dreamplane, learning secrets that would prevent their destruction.  
 

-Alonzo was deep in space, far from G889.   He was travelling towards it, though, riding shotgun on something that seemed to be an errant asteroid that pulsed and glowed with energy-

-A flash of light, and he was back on the planet clutching his leg as blood seeped through the bandages, it was still broken and-

-he was standing on two feet, watching the moons cross above as the sunstones crackled with energy beneath him-

-and the Terrians sang fearfully of the death that was coming from the sky-

-it was ten thousand years ago, a time when evil Terrians roamed the planet and there were wars and violence.  For a time, though, every being bonded together to survive The Passing-

-and the planet was screaming as this great force orbited by, pulling at the energies and threatening to tear the very focal points from their foundations but in a great display of co-operation the Terrians stood, united, with their staffs held high they created a vast network of electricity that was able to calm the forces and quell the great storm until it had passed away-

-Alonzo crashed on G889 and then crashed again and again because the approaching asteroid was distorting the flow of time-

-and one small boy whispered, "the end", and then Alonzo was back at camp, watching the sky as the monolith passed just outside the range of the moons and the Terrians screamed, linking in a great chain once again-

-Uly vanished and G889 died-

-Morgan whispered, "I love you" just before the end-

-and Alonzo crashed and he kissed Julia for the first time and he crashed and he kissed her and he crashed-

-and The Passing is soon....  
 

Alonzo gasped as his hold on the Terrian was released and it sank back into the wall.  He fell to the ground, almost in shock due to the maelstrom of images that had passed before his eyes, too many for Alonzo to make sense of.  Morgan ran to his side and gently turned him over, gravely worried about his friend.  He'd been dreaming for over half an hour while Morgan watched helplessly.

"Alonzo?  Are you okay?"  When there was no response Morgan activated his gear and tried to call camp.  But the signal couldn't penetrate the rock, or there was too much interference inside the cave.  "Alonzo!" Morgan tried again.  Alonzo groaned, his eyes bleary.

"Stay with me," cautioned Morgan as he attempted to drag Alonzo from the cave.  After five minutes of tugging and not getting anywhere very fast, Morgan decided he had better go and get help.  But something stopped him - a hand on his arm.

"Hold on, Morgan.  I'm okay now, I think."  Alonzo tentatively sat up and rested his head in his hands.  "It was just really - intense."

"Do you need anything?  Water?"  Morgan was already grabbing a bottle from his pack left near the cave entrance and Alonzo reached out for it in appreciation.  He swayed for a moment before bringing the bottle to his lips, but there seemed to be a marked improvement after Alonzo finished drinking.

He looked directly at Morgan and said, "We have to warn camp."

"About what?"  Morgan was visibly agitated.

"Can you help me outside?"  Shakily, Alonzo stood up and the pair made their way outside the tunnel and called Devon.

"Dev, you have to listen real carefully, okay?" Alonzo began.  "'Cause I think we're in big trouble."  Slowly, Alonzo explained what he had seen.

"There's an asteroid, I think it used to be part of the planet itself.  Anyway, it causes some kind of imbalance every time it comes past G889.  In the past, the Terrians have been able to survive it, they call it The Passing, by bonding together and forming some sort of energy shield, no, not a shield, more like a magnet to repel the conflicting energies."

Alonzo paused to take a deep breath, giving Devon the chance to interrupt.

"And you think this is going to happen soon?"

"Real soon," Alonzo replied darkly.  "The Terrians said there were signs...maybe that's why this tunnel is alive and glowing.  We found more tunnels, Devon, and it's like pulses of energy are racing through it every second.  It's much stronger than the other one we found."

"So what does this have to do with all of us?"  Devon's tone was blunt and to the point, as usual.

"Not us," Alonzo warned.  "Uly.  I got the impression that he's of paramount importance to what's gonna happen - they need him to keep the power in balance or something.  I know you won't like it, Devon, but it has to happen.  G889's going to blow up unless the Terrians get Uly's help," finished Alonzo darkly.

Frowning, Devon asked, "Is he going to be alright?"

Alonzo hesitated.  "That's the one thing I don't quite understand.  I kept seeing Uly vanish, but it wasn't caused by The Passing, it was something else entirely yet I know it has to be related to this as well."  Shaking his head, Alonzo continued, "I wish I could explain more, but I could only get this while I was touching the Terrian.  I don't think I can reach the Dreamplane on my own anymore because the planet's too busy battling the asteroid to use its energy on me."  It was a simplified explanation but it was the best Alonzo could come up with at that point in time.  Only later would he realise this cascade of events that had been set in motion months, even years, earlier.

"See if you can find out any more," Devon instructed.  "As soon as I can contact the other teams, I'll send them to meet you.  Danziger found some tunnels on the western slope but he couldn't see much in them, just glowing sunstones."

"Yeah, they're here too," Alonzo affirmed.  "This could be it, Devon.  This could be what Elizabeth warned you about, she could have known that this was coming and we couldn't survive it."

"Elizabeth didn't know what my son can do," countered Devon, a hint of pride in her voice.  "I'll talk to you soon, Alonzo.  Keep me informed."

"Will do," he replied and gave her a quick grin.  It was a smile Devon would remember for many days to come, for when Danziger and the others arrived at Alonzo's position, both Alonzo and Morgan had vanished completely.

 ***

Bess sat alone by the fire, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them.  The warm weather alleviated the need for a fire but that night, Eden Advance had lit one regardless.  It was something comforting in the darkness of the night and they all needed comfort that night with two of their own gone.

As she stared into the flickering light, Bess was praying.  Praying that her husband was safe wherever he was and praying that he would be returned to her soon.  For almost an hour she sat there and no one dared disturb her, not even to offer the comfort all knew she was craving.

Julia, too, was distraught although not showing it as visibly as Bess.  The group had surmised that Alonzo and Morgan had been caught up in one of the transportation tunnels and taken far across the planet.  Eden Advance kept telling themselves that the men had landed some distance from the tunnel and as soon as they found the entrance, they would come straight back.  Any other possibility was unthinkable.

Danziger and Walman were camped near the mouth of the cave, armed with medical supplies just in case they were needed when the missing men returned.  Julia and Bess had also wanted to remain by the mountain but Yale had cautioned them that it was too dangerous and, surprisingly, they had listened to his words of wisdom.

The night grew later, the moons brighter, and Bess finally moved, if only to uncross her legs and stretch.  Yale saw this motion and approached her gently, silently taking a seat beside her.  He noticed the tears on her face and elected to say nothing, just be a welcoming ear.

It wasn't long before Bess began to speak.  "I can't stop worrying about him," she began hesitantly.  "He's all alone out there - wherever there is - and he doesn't like being alone in new places.  He's not strong like that, Morgan craves familiarity and in the past I've always been there to help him through changes.  But I'm not there!  I should be with him, I should never have let him go on a scouting trip again, not after the last time...."  Her voice broke off and Bess began sobbing quietly.

Yale gingerly placed a comforting arm around her shoulders.  "Bess, you couldn't have known what would happen.  I'm sure Morgan will return to us safe and sound very soon."

"But what if he doesn't?" Bess protested loudly.  "What if he's gone forever?  Then what will I do?"  She gulped, trying to slow her tears.

"You'll survive, Bess.  You are strong, I know that you have it in your heart to go on without him.  And who knows, Bess?  Maybe we'll join up with Alonzo and Morgan further on the journey.  They could already be there at New Pacifica, waiting for us.  You can't give up hope," Yale concluded.

But Bess could not be calmed this night.  She stared up at the stars as the moons reached their respecitive zeniths and thought only of Morgan, trying to reach him with her love.

 ***

Devon couldn't rest, either.  She sat up in her small bed, watching Uly sleep and wondering what the Terrians would ask of him this time.  He was only a small boy who had already been requested to do so much, to take part in things that would have frightened even the most seasoned of adults.  And now she was confronted with having to let him do so again.

Sighing, Devon reached out to gently stroke his hair and noticed Danziger's woolen cap beside Uly's pillow.  The boy had been wearing it earlier - for the evening had held an unusual chill and Danziger, aware of Uly's recent weak spell, had been watching out for him as usual.  Devon smiled and pocketed the hat, intending to return in the next morning.  She loved the way Danziger looked out for her son and wished that the Terrians would somehow give her the same guarantee.

Devon understood that a few Terrian rituals were a small price to pay for the health of her son.  She couldn't imagine life without Uly, he'd been special to her for so long.  Devon could barely remember the first few days of indecision after learning she was pregnant, it seemed to her now that she had always wanted Uly in her life and couldn't imagine it any other way.

He looked so young, curled up in the way he was.  Thinking of Alonzo's warning, Devon pictured him standing with the Terrians and holding a staff high as they somehow deflected a comet from its path.  Devon couldn't know how accurate her vision was, but the whole set of circumstances seemed fairly unreal to her.

She supposed she would know more if (or when) the event occurred.  Right now, however, she was more concerned about the two missing men and just where they might be.  She hoped they were safe.  And then Devon thought of Danziger, bravely camped near the site where the incident had occurred, and hoped (even more fervently) that he would remain safe too.

 ***

While True slept peacefully in a tent with Julia, she was also busy making necklaces of silverwear to trade with the grendlers.  Bess had recently discovered the creatures' trait and everyone was pitching in, finding things to swap for their own cargo which had been stolen from them.  True wanted to help in any way she could, to make up for all the trouble she'd caused with the koba.

 ***

Danziger moaned as he rolled over in his sleep, frightened by the images he saw.  There was a desperate edge to the dream, there was a message that was coming through strongly.

Then Danziger realised he was Terrian-dreaming and the whole idea scared the hell out of him.  He looked defiantly at the creatures as he suppressed his fears, shouting, "What do you want?"  He was shown an image of Alonzo which promptly vanished.  "Where is he?" yelled Danziger.  "What have you done with them?"

The only response Danziger could get was an impression that the Terrians had nothing to do with the disappearance of the two men, it was out of their jurisdiction, and unless Alonzo returned, Danziger would have to help them.

"Help you with what?" countered Danziger.  But already the Terrians were fading, leaving him with the overriding sense of urgency that unless he acted soon, everything would die.

And when Danziger awoke, he could barely recall much of the dream, unaccustomed as he was to the Dreamplane.  He told what he could to Devon, Julia, Yale and Uly the next morning but was more embarrassed by the whole affair than helpful and the matter was dropped.

Danziger didn't know it then, but it was only the beginning of many hauntings from the Terrians as they sought to reach the only one who could truly help them now that the Dreamer was gone.

 ***

Julia frowned as she scanned the mountain before her.  Fluctuating readings were the order of the day, obviously caused by the rivers of energies running through the mountain.  With every passing moment, Julia was becoming more convinced that this planet was more complex than they'd ever imagined - everything seemed to be held in delicate balance yet this balance was being disrupted from a force far more powerful than mere humans could conquer.

It appeared that Alonzo was right and as Julia thought of Alonzo, a pain stabbed through her heart.  He'd been gone for almost a day now, long enough for him to return to the camp if he was alright.  She kept telling herself that he and Morgan were only exploring, perhaps they'd landed near one of their pods from the Advance Ship and were gathering supplies at that very moment.

But why didn't they come back, simply to say they were okay?  Why not call on gear if they were able to?  Despite the devices' limited range, Julia knew that Alonzo would at least try to contact her.  Her own gear was set to maximum receival range in a desperate hope to hear anything from the missing men.

No matter how hard she listened, though, there was never anything.  Her flyboy with the charming grin was gone and it hurt so much.

Julia looked up as she heard Danziger approaching and managed a half-smile.  "Getting anything?" she asked.  He shook his head in response.

"The only way we're going to find out what happened is if we go in those tunnels ourselves, and Adair declared them off limits.  She doesn't want anymore crew going missing."  It was obvious from Danziger's tone that he disagreed with Devon's instructions but he wasn't going to disobey them just yet.  He and the others had been perfectly fine the previous afternoon when they'd first gone after the missing pair and Danziger didn't understand why Devon was so much more hesitant this day.

"I reviewed Alonzo's last message," said Julia, fighting to keep her voice steady as she again froze over the word 'last'.  As in final, as if she would never see him again.  Julia swallowed.  "He mentioned that he only got all his information from actually touching a Terrian, something Devon confirmed.  It seems to be easier to reach the Dreamplane if you're in direct contact with one."

Danziger rubbed his chin, frowning, and Julia could see the cogs ticking over in his mind.  "Adair doesn't have to know..." he began hesitantly.  "We could just step in the entrance, have a quick look around and see if the Terrians are there.  We'd only take a few minutes," he added, as if trying to convince himself that it was the right thing to do.

Watching him closely, Julia could see the frustration in his eyes at not being able to do anything and the determination to find his friends.  And, almost against her conscious will, she found herself agreeing with Danziger.  She would do anything to find Alonzo and if that involved putting herself at risk, then so be it.

Besides, she rationalised to herself, she and Danziger were experienced with the transportation tunnels, should the worst occur.  Morgan wasn't, and maybe Alonzo had gone after him to rescue him, or maybe Morgan was just panicking.  From what Julia remembered, being thrown halfway across the planet in mere milliseconds was an entirely disorientating experience.

She stared straight at Danziger.  "A few minutes and that's it."  Danziger smiled as he realised she was going to back him up and together they cautiously approached the entrance.  They knew they were in the right place because Morgan and Alonzo's packs had been found inside this particular opening.  From a few metres away, the hairs on Danziger's arms began to prick up due to the amount of static electricity in the air.  Danziger swatted his arms in annoyance, not realising that wispy tendrils of his head hair were beginning to stick up too.

The whooshing of the tunnels was even more frequent now; it formed  a dull undercurrent of noise in addition to the humming.  Masking his trepidation, Danziger stepped into the cave.  He still couldn't understand how Alonzo and Morgan had been taken - they wouldn't have intentionally stepped into one of the transportation tunnels that were immediately obvious to any observer.  Which left one of only two other options - they'd fallen in, or they'd been pushed.  It was the latter option that worried Danziger.

Looking around, Danziger said, "So now what?  Do we just call the Terrians or something?"

Julia shrugged.  "As far as I know, they appear of their own free will."  Almost as if her words were prophetic, a Terrian burst from the wall and reached its arms beseechingly to Danziger.  He glanced nervously at Julia, she smiled encouragingly.  Taking a deep breath, Danziger reached out and trusted a Terrian for the first time, knowing that the lives of his friends and the planet depended on it.

 ***

Morgan was sleeping peacefully, everything was so calm and right.  There were no dreams to haunt him, nothing to disturb his tranquil world and unconsciously, he tightened his arms around his bedmate.  Gradually, though, he was roused from his slumber, slowly, gently.  Morgan sighed peacefully.

He felt so content, as if it was the longest rest he'd had in a while.  The air was strangely chilly but the warm arms wrapped around his body did their best to keep the cold at bay.  "Bess," Morgan murmured happily, realising he was clad in nothing but his underwear.  Obviously the night before had been very - fulfilling.

His partner moved slightly and a sigh escaped Morgan's lips.  That was when he realised something was quite wrong.  While Morgan wasn't a particularly large man, Bess had a substantially smaller frame than his.  But the person who held him now....  Panicking, Morgan's eyes flew open and he looked directly into Alonzo's grinning face mere inches from his own.

"Good morning, sweetie," he smiled softly.  Morgan yelled and scrambled out of Alonzo's embrace as quickly as he could.   He looked down.  He looked at Alonzo's near naked frame.  He yelled again, then began shaking his head very quickly, as if to deny the evidence in front of him.

"Oh God, please tell me we didn't, we didn't did we?"  Morgan was almost pleading.  Shutting his eyes, Morgan vainly tried to remember something from the previous evening but drew a total blank.  The last thing he remembered was being spooked by a spider crawling up his leg and falling backwards in his haste to get it off....

Morgan heard Alonzo clearing his throat, and peeked out from one eye.  The man was stretching, a satisfied grin on his face and almost against his own will, Morgan found himself watching the rippling muscles and noticing the tight Calvins Alonzo wore.  "What, no kiss?" Alonzo asked.  Morgan could only moan.

"Don't tell me you don't remember last night," said Alonzo, taking a step towards Morgan and frowning.  Morgan backed away.

"W-What about last night?" he managed.

Alonzo shook his head.  "When you - well, let's just say that you blacked out for a while afterward...."

Morgan finally noticed his clothes spread out over a pile of sunstones and grabbed them to his chest.  He would not look at Alonzo, he refused to look at him.  His head was spinning with the implications of whatever had happened the previous night - how could he ever look at Alonzo again?  And how could he face Bess?

That was when Morgan heard the evil laughter of someone who'd been playing a horrible, cruel joke.  He found the courage to look up.

"Relax, Morgan," chuckled Alonzo.  "It's not what you think, but I just couldn't resist, you jumping up like you did with that tortured expression on your face...."

Beginning to breathe a little easier, Morgan scowled, still horribly embarrassed but for different reasons now.  "I hope you have a good explanation for this," he mumbled.  He savagely kicked a stone and watched it skitter across the floor of the large cave the pair were in.

Alonzo picked up his worn pants and began to pull them on.  "Morgan, you have no idea what you missed.  And no idea what kind of trouble you caused!"  Now, Alonzo was clearly indignant, feeling that his little joke was well within his rights after what Morgan had done to him the previous day.  "Not only did you lose it over one little spider, but you pulled me into the tunnel with you when you fell backwards!  So we got transported halfway across the planet to who-knows-where, our gear doesn't work, and there are a million and one tunnels in this cave and I don't have a clue which is the one we came through in."

Alonzo took a deep breath, pausing before his tirade gathered even more steam as he shook of the last vestiges of sleep and again remembered the dire situation he and Morgan were in.  "Not only were we thrown to this place," he gestured in disgust, "but do you know where we landed?"

Morgan shook his head and Alonzo continued.  "Outside.  Outside in a freezing arctic wasteland."  As Alonzo pointed to one end of the cave, Morgan became aware of a thin, pale light filtering through that wasn't caused by the ever-present glow of the sunstones.  At that moment he also realised that this cave, too, was humming, yet the ever-present sound had become recognised as background noise by his subconscious mind and therefore screened out.

"So there we were, thrown into the snow.  It took me half an hour to find the cave entrance and realise that you weren't inside.  It took me another two hours to find you face down in the snow, unconscious and suffering from hypothermia.  I had to drag your sorry butt in here and get you warm any way I could."

Obviously, that meant human body heat, as close as possible.  Morgan glanced around the cave again.  "But what about the stones?" he asked.  "They have plenty of heat in them...."

Alonzo blushed for some reason, and it wasn't long before Morgan figured out why.  "Look at your toes," Alonzo mumbled.  Morgan did so and yelped.

"They're burnt!"  Indeed, they were red and angry-looking, and now that Morgan was aware of the injury he realised that they were sore to boot.

"Courtesy of the sunstones," finished Alonzo.  He sighed.  "You understand now?"

Contrite, Morgan replied, "Yeah.  I - I'm sorry."  The last few words were almost an inaudible mumble but Alonzo understood the sentiment.  Besides, he was one of the few people that would accept an apology from Morgan; there was an unspoken, tentative friendship and respect between the two men.

They finished dressing in silence, Morgan was glad to note that his clothes were thoroughly dry.  "Thanks, Alonzo," he finally managed to say.  "I guess I owe you one."  A shrug was the only response he got.

Morgan's stomach rumbled loudly and he realised how hungry he was.  Looking around he saw nothing that would make a meal, they didn't even have any supplies with them.  Only gear, which was useless anyway.  "I'm taking a look outside," he announced and strode towards the exit even as Alonzo told him not to bother.

A gust of icy air hit Morgan as he crawled through the small opening into the outside world.  Everything, absolutely everything, was white.  It was a miracle Alonzo had even been able to find the cave, not to mention Morgan himself.  Morgan glanced up at the sky and noticed the sun quite high for what was supposed to be early morning.  He surmised that it was summer here at the northern (or southern, it was difficult to tell) pole of G889, meaning constant daylight for days on end.

And even as he experienced these revelations, Morgan was also aware that there was no food in this place and their only hope lay with returning to Eden Advance.  He picked up a handful of snow - he could quench his thirst, at least - and then froze.

Out of the billowing mists of snow there was a shape.  Morgan could have sworn it wasn't there before but maybe the wind had died down enough for him to see it now.  Even as something inside of him warned him to turn back, Morgan was compelled to take a step forward.

Slowly, more shapes came into view.  They were all small, perhaps half a metre high, and semi-rectangular in shape.  Almost without consciously realising it, Morgan suddenly knew that he was looking at a small cemetery.

"Alonzo!" he shouted back to the tunnel and then continued on to the headstones.  His heart was pounding wildly - he couldn't imagine what settlers would ever have come to one of G889's poles where it was a frozen wasteland all year round.  And as far as he knew, neither the Terrians nor the Grendlers dug graves like this....

He approached the first headstone and vaguely noticed that it was ice-free.  A name was ornately etched there, a name that was clearly human but meant nothing to Morgan.  A twisted, green vine obscured the rest of the lettering so Morgan moved on.  He wound his way through the headstones, pausing every so often to read the carvings but his mind did not register the one thing that was very, very wrong with them all.

Suddenly, a particular headstone caught Morgan's attention.  Fine particles of snow were still blown around the boundaries of the cemetery but inside it was eerily quiet.  He stepped closer towards the tablet, aware of the sound of blood pounding in his own ears, and glanced at the enscription.  The name stood out with startling clarity and it was a name that chilled Morgan to the bone.

"Bess Amelia Martin."

Morgan ran.  He couldn't help it, it was as if his legs had taken on a mind of their own as they raced from the terrible reality of the headstone in the nightmarish, impossible cemetery.  All the while his mind was repeating, "It can't be true, it can't be true!" as he ran to the safety of the cave and away from the vision.

He burst in to see Alonzo doing push-ups.  "Alonzo - there's a cemetery out there and Bess is buried in it!"

Usually, nothing would prevent Alonzo from completing his daily twenty or one hundred push-ups (after all, he did have to stay in shape) but at Morgan's urgent words, Alonzo sprang to his feet.  Morgan quickly explained and the men ventured outside, Alonzo leading with Morgan cautiously following behind.

There was nothing to be seen.

"But it was there, I swear it was," Morgan protested.  There was so much vehemence behind his words that Alonzo was inclined to believe the story.

"Was it a Terrian dream?" Alonzo asked.

Morgan shook his head.  "No, no, I haven't even seen a Terrian anywhere near this place.  I thought they didn't like the cold."

Alonzo was inclined to agree, this place was, not surprisingly, devoid of Terrian activity.  "Then maybe you saw a glimpse of the future," Alonzo finally realised.  "Did you happen to read a date on the headstone?"

Morgan froze, only now appreciating what had been so wrong about the whole cemetery vision.  The dates on each grave had been years, even a century or more, ahead of the current year.  "Not on Bess's, but on the others - Alonzo, they were from the future."

"It's the planet," Alonzo suggested, putting together signs from his own experience and the dreams he'd been given.  "Think about it - we've often seen echoes of the past on G889."

"Like when?" asked Morgan.

"When we first arrived at the biodome.  I don't know if Devon told everyone, but I know she saw ghosts or something, echoes of Mary's parents."

Nodding, Morgan exclaimed, "So that was the creepy thing Bess told me that I didn't really see."

"There have been other incidents, too," Alonzo continued, finally able to realise this.  "My leg - it had been healed for months and then suddenly it was broken again.  But only for a short while, and then it was healed again without going through the pain."

"And - and," Morgan was excited, he seemed to be on the verge of a revelation here, "Bess and I found the geolock after we'd used it!"

Alonzo stared at him.  "You're sure about that?"

"Yes, I'm positive.  I didn't realise it then, because it all seemed perfectly natural.  Bess and I knew we had the geolock but we never knew where it came from until some weeks later when we found it."  Morgan paused.  "This is making my head spin.  It's amazing what you can see with hindsight."

"So that's three incidents, four if you count the cemetery you just saw."  Morgan and Alonzo had no way of knowing of Devon's contact and visions of the future Uly, knowledge which would only have brought more evidence for their growing theory.

"But these things didn't happen until we'd been on G889 for a while.  You think it's connected to this asteroid that's supposed to mess up the planet?" Morgan asked.

"I'm sure of it," Alonzo quickly replied.  "We know that there's something special about G889 - not only the dreamplane, but the network of sunstones, almost like arteries.  Maybe it has some kind of control over the past and the future, where we can see or experience things from other times."

The two turned back into the cave, they were beginning to freeze outside in their relatively light clothing.  "But it doesn't all make sense," continued Morgan.  "Why are some things visions, and others were real experiences of ours?"

A transportation tunnel blinked and at the same time, the answer flashed into Alonzo's mind.  "The tunnels," he said.  "They're not just used for motion, but they must be transdimensional as well.  Think about it - it's theoretically impossible for us to have travelled so far in such a short time period, even if we were travelling at the speed of light which isn't possible," explained Alonzo, remembering the things he'd learnt in flight school.  "By entering the tunnel and being thrown this far across G889, we may have also travelled back in time...if only for a millisecond or so."

Incredulous, Morgan stared at him.  "How the hell do you know that?"

"I don't know - it's like the entire planet is starting to make its way into my brain.  This humming, it's trying to make me understand."  Alonzo realised that G889 was in gravest danger, and only by using its rudimentary sentience to reach out to the new dwellers could it hope to survive.

"So what do we do now?" Morgan asked.

"We have to choose a tunnel and hope it's the right one to take us back.  Just wait until we tell Julia our theory!"

"Isn't that dangerous?" Morgan quickly asked, referring to the choice of tunnels  "I mean, what if we end up buried in a mountain or even worse, thrown to some other time like you think we might be...?"

Alonzo shrugged.  "What else can we do?  This place is lit up like a Christmas tree with transportation tunnels in every direction.  We have no way of knowing which one we came through, if it even was one of these."

Pacing back and forwards, Morgan considered their situation and finally came to the conclusion that the only thing they could do was randomly select a tunnel.  "Okay, I'm with you," he finally sighed.  "Got any bright ideas as to which one we should try first?"

Alonzo shrugged and pointed straight ahead.  "We might as well start with the closest one."  Cautiously, the men approached the intermittent light, careful to keep well clear of the multitude of spiderwebs.

Taking Morgan's hand in his own, "Just as a precaution," Alonzo said, "we don't want to get separated again," they stepped forward.

"Here we go!" shouted Morgan as the space-time field enveloped both of their bodies and warped them away.

 ***

Danziger's face was grey and ashen as he was released from the Terrian.  "No, no way, no way in hell," he kept muttering over and over.

Julia placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.  "John, are you okay?"

"The Terrians - they want us to operate on Uly, to make him stronger - to make his links to them stronger.  They say there are parts of him that they can't reach.  Julia, I saw you with a sample of his DNA, doing something to it..."

Her eyes wide, Julia asked, "But is that so wrong?  I'm sure I could temporarily enhance his abilities, and Uly's been through so many changes already-"

Danziger angrily cut her off.  "It's not just that, it's when they want me to do it.  I can't pretend I understand all of it but I saw Devon back on the stations with a baby Uly and it's something like I have to inject him then with this change so that his whole life he has this Terrian stuff growing inside of him.  But I can't do that, you understand?  I don't even know if it's possible but I can not and will not do something to change the natural order of Uly's life.  It isn't fair to him and it isn't fair to Devon.  She went through enough pain when Uly was first changed - how would she feel if he'd been part Terrian ever since he was a baby?"

"My God," breathed Julia.  "Do you actually think the Terrians can do that?  Throw you back in time?"

Danziger gave a short, harsh laugh.  "I'm beginning to think that anything's possible on this damn planet.  I wasn't gonna tell anyone this, but I saw something a few days ago.  It was Devon with a little girl, and now I'm thinking I saw something of the future."

"Or maybe the past," broke in Julia, remembering the science-fiction novels she'd read as a lonely teenager.  "It could be that this little girl is the result of you going back and tampering with Uly's DNA."

Danziger shook his head.  "No, this kid was way younger than Uly.  Anyway, it doesn't matter who she was.  The problem now is do we listen to the Terrians?"

"It could be important," Julia responded.  She paused, deep in thought for a moment.  "I could conduct an analysis of Uly - too see exactly how much he's changed.  Should we tell Devon about this?"

"No," Danziger replied vehemently.  "I don't want her to know."  It was an instinctive gut reaction on Danziger's part, he wanted to protect Devon in any way he could.  He turned and squarely faced the Terrian, which seemed to be waiting for something.  "I'm not going back and tampering with Devon's son just so you can have a stronger link with him.  You understand that?"

The Terrian just stared, and then, quite deliberately, reached out and pushed Danziger backwards.

"What the hell-" was all Danziger managed before the transdimensional tunnel took him and he phased out of existence in this reality.

 ***

John Danziger crashed into an unyielding, metal wall.  Hard.  His breath was literally knocked out of him and he sank to the ground, wheezing for a few moments as he struggled to refill his lungs with the much-needed oxygen.

It was the smell that first alerted Danziger as to where he was, or rather, the lack of smell.  The air was devoid of any scent save a rather stale odour that indicated that it had been recycled several times over, a smell that Danziger knew he would never be able to forget even if he lived several lifetimes breathing the sweet atmosphere of a planet.

He was back on the space stations.  Warily Danziger got to his feet and looked around he noticed two distinct things.  Firstly, he was in a part of a station that he had never seen before.  The walls were decorated and even heated ever so slightly, in an attempt to hide the reality of the metal that they were.  A plush, beige carpet lined the floor and there were 'windows' at various intervals showing relaxing scenes from an unpolluted Earth.  All of this obviously indicated a wealthy area, much nicer than anything Danziger had ever seen out in the quadrant.

Secondly, he wasn't alone.  A trio of well-dressed people marched quickly past him, their noses in the air, and it was a sensation John Danziger was well accustomed to.  He could almost hear their disdainful thoughts, wondering what a person like him was doing in their section of this particular space station, wherever it was.

When the group rounded the corner, Danziger swore viciously and pounded the wall.  What the hell had the Terrian done to him?  How could he suddenly be back on the stations he'd left light years behind him?  It had to be a dream, Danziger told himself.  Some bizarre twisted reality that had been conjectured merely to convince Danziger that changing Uly was right.

The lighting was dim, indicating night in a world that was eternally dark outside.  Looking around, Danziger let his rage gradually subside and curiosity began to take over as he wondered why he was there and what he would see.

It wasn't long before he knew.  A couple were walking down the corridor, their arms wrapped companionably around each other's waist.  Their heads were bent close as they talked animatedly, the woman laughing softly every so often.  Danziger quickly sidled around the corner, his heart pounding at an alarming rate.  Without even getting close to the woman, he knew it was Devon Adair.

He knew her that well, Danziger reflected.  He could spot her a mile away, with her distinctive walk, the sound of her laughter, even the tilt of her head - they were all mannerisms he knew as well as his own daughter's.  It was in that moment that John Danziger realised that he was head-over-heels in love with Devon Adair.

And right now, she was walking down the nightmarish corridors of a space station arm in arm with some other man.  They walked closer and Danziger shrank back, wondering what he'd do if they kept going and rounded the corner.  He needn't have worried.  Devon and the mystery man slowed and stopped in front of a door mere metres from where Danziger was hidden.

This close, Danziger could see Devon a lot more clearly and was suddenly shocked by how young she looked.  She was in her early twenties, the smile lines he knew so well were nowhere near as deep.  Her companion was a few years older, an average looking man with curly brown hair and a slender frame.  The revelation hit Danziger like a ton of bricks - was this the mysterious man who was Ulysses Adair's father?

Barely daring to breath, Danziger inched his head a little further around the corner to get a better view.  He was a comical sight and had anyone else come along, his vantage point would have been immediately revealed.  But this late in the night, there were few  other travellers and Devon and her partner were too wrapped up in each other to even notice the mysterious spy.

As the man bent his head towards Devon for a lingering kiss, an irrational surge of jealousy passed through Danziger.  He knew there was no reason to be jealous - all of this had occurred years before he had even heard of the name Devon Adair.  But try as he might, he couldn't stop the feelings or the urge to protect Devon from this man.

Painfully, Danziger watched the kiss grow deeper until Devon finally pushed the man away and gently shook her head.  "I think it's time for you to go, Brett.  Goodnight," Devon said firmly.

Brett caught her hands in his and said, "Come on, Devvy, just one more kiss?"  He didn't allow her to reply and quickly covered her mouth with his.

This time, it only took Devon a few seconds to pull back.  "Brett, it's been a wonderful evening.  Please don't spoil it."  She turned away from him and keyed open her door.  It slid open and Brett snaked a hand around Devon's waist as she moved to go inside.

"Aren't you going to invite me in for coffee?"  Brett's voice was light and teasing yet there was an undercurrent of danger within it.  From his vantage point, Danziger noted Devon perceptibly shiver as she tried to pull away.

"No, Brett," she protested.  "I'm really tired tonight.  I'll see you tomorrow at the board meeting."  Now she was really pulling to get away from him but Brett wouldn't let her go.

He leaned over her, becoming (in Danziger's eyes) a menacing figure.  "You don't really mean that," he cajoled.  "Just for a few minutes?"

"Brett, I said no!"  Outwardly, Devon was visibly upset and nothing more, but her voice belayed the fear inside of her.  She pushed on Brett's chest, trying to make him let go, but his arms were locked like a vice around her.  Brett began to move her backwards, so they would both be secure inside her apartment, and that was when Danziger could watch no longer.

He burst from around the corner.  "I think the lady wants to be left alone," he said in a low, dangerous voice.  Both Brett and Devon froze, Brett with a territorial gleam in his eyes and Devon sending him messages of silent gratitude.

"I think you should stay out of this, drone," sneered Brett.  "This is a private discussion between my girlfriend and I."

"I'm not your girlfriend!" Devon hissed, using the interruption to remove herself safely well away from Brett.  She looked to Danziger, pleading for help even though it was obvious she regretted her loss of control of the situation.

Clearly furious, Brett took a step closer to Danziger so that there wasn't even one pace between the two men.  "I thought I told you to go away."

"I'm not leaving," countered Danziger evenly.  "Not until you leave first."

Suddenly, Brett's fist flew out and hit Danziger squarely in the jaw.  Danziger responded instinctively with his own brutal retaliation leaving Brett gasping and bent over double.

"Now, are you going to leave?" Danziger asked.

Brett looked up and gave Danziger a vicious stare.  "This isn't the last of this, drone," he spat before he scuttled away.

Devon had watched the whole interchange silently, and only when Brett was gone did she allow herself to breathe again.  She slumped against the doorframe, her heart beating furiously as she realised what could have happened if the mysterious stranger hadn't come along at that exact moment.

"Thank you," Devon finally managed.  "I'd been warned against Brett but I thought I could handle him - I thought I could handle anyone!"  Tears filled this young Devon's eyes.  "I guess I was wrong."

His hand moving of its own volition, Danziger reached out and gently tilted her chin up so that her eyes could meet his own.  He wanted to wrap her in a comforting embrace but didn't think Devon would be very receptive to any kind of touch that night.  "That kind of man is a bastard," Danziger said, noticing Devon flinch at the profanity.  "They'll stoop to anything to get what they want - it's not your fault."

"You're sure about that?"  Devon's eyes were wide and...vulnerable.  Every instinct in Danziger's body kicked in, telling him to protect her in every way he could.  But then he remembered who he was, who she was, and why he shouldn't even be speaking to her at that point in time.

"Positive," Danziger affirmed.  "Now how about you go inside and get some rest.  You'll feel better in the morning."

Managing a weak smile, Devon agreed, "I suppose I will.  Thank you," she said again as she stepped backwards into the safety of her apartment.  "I won't forget this, Mr...?"

Danziger smiled back at her.  "My name isn't important.  Stay strong, Devon," he whispered and walked away.  Silently, around the corner, aware of Devon's eyes boring into his back the whole time.

He paused, sighing gratefully when he heard the soft hiss of her door finally closing.  And then another whooshing sound reached his ears, the sound of the transportation tunnels back on G889.  Danziger saw the light and without hesitation, ran towards it and was carried away.

 ***

Uly, running across the grass, stumbled.  He suddenly felt very, very ill.  "True?" he called, his voice sounding thin and weak even to his own ears.  "True, I need you."  She didn't come and without warning, Uly found himself on the Dreamplane.

The Terrians were gathered around him, looking as worried as a Terrian can appear.  Heads were tilted to the side, some even pawed him like a child might pat an injured animal.  "What's happening?" Uly asked.

He saw Auryn again but this time it was cracked.  The two snakes no longer ate their own tails, the endless cycle broken for all time.  "Mom!" Uly called one last time before the Dreamplane, and everything, dissolved around him.

 ***

"Danziger!"  Someone was shouting his name.  He groaned, the full force of being thrown twenty two years in both space and time beginning to hit him.  "Danziger, are you alright?"

Julia.  He remembered now, they'd been talking in the cave when the Terrian pushed him.  "I'm fine," he managed to respond, slowly realising that he lay on the other side of the tunnel from where Julia stood.  He unsteadily got to his feet, shaking his head the whole time and not able to determine if what he'd just seen and done was a dream or some warped reality.

He heard Julia let out a small sigh that sounded eerily like exasperation but it must have been relief.  "Devon would have killed me if we'd lost you as well."

"Yeah, well I'm here, and in one piece."  He paused, taking note of the lighting and shadows around the cave's entrance.  "How long was I gone?"

"Gone?"  There was a note of disbelief in Julia's voice.  "Danziger, you didn't go anywhere.  You fell backwards into the tunnel, I heard the transport sound, but it must have missed you because you're safe on the other side."

"Oh."  Danziger didn't have much more to say after that.  Gingerly, he crawled around the end of the flashing tunnel and noticed that the cave was still lit up like some garish new year's celebration.  "So nothing's changed?"

An empty expression appeared on Julia's face.  "Nothing," she said, keeping her voice devoid of emotion.  "Alonzo and Morgan are still missing and as for this asteroid..."  She broke off, noticing the rather large bruise on Danziger's lower cheek.

"We still don't know if that's gonna happen," cautioned Danziger.  He reached Julia and took her hands, believing his experience to have been nothing more than a very realistic dream and was glad to be back in the real world.  "I think Adair was right, we can't do anything for Morgan and Alonzo right now.  We should head back to camp."  In actual fact, Danziger wanted time to reflect on what he'd seen.  Devon in her early twenties was more beautiful, and vulnerable, than he'd ever imagined.  It would take him a while to rationalise that image with the formidable woman he knew in this time.

Danziger didn't see the shadow of confusion that crossed Julia's face as she glanced at him.  She opened her mouth as if to say something, but closed it just as quickly.  "Back to camp," Julia finally agreed.  "But first, let me take a look at your face.  You must have hit a rock when you went down."

Danziger gingerly lifted a hand to his face and probed the tender spot.  He winced.

"You're going to have quite a bruise for a while," Julia announced when she'd finished examining him.  "My diaglove's back at camp, so we'll have to wait and see if I can do anything for you."  Rocks, mumbled Julia under her breath.  They came in the most bizarre shapes, this one had left a mark just like a human fist.

 ***

Moaning, Alonzo found himself face-first on a rocky ground with Morgan nowhere to be seen - again.  His first thought was that holding hands didn't work, obviously, the tunnels sought to rip people apart as much as possible.  Idly, Alonzo wondered how Morgan would react if they wrapped their arms and legs around each other next time they jumped into a tunnel.

Which brought him to the same old problem, where was Morgan?  Sitting up and looking around, Alonzo knew that he wasn't in the  original cave, although this cave did look similar to the other one, complete with the gaudy lightshow, so perhaps they had landed in the same mountain.  He certainly hoped so.

"We're still lost," Alonzo heard the grim announcement from behind him.  "As far as I can tell, there's only one spider tunnel in this place and no exits."  Morgan paused, realising the gravity of his own words.  "No exits," he repeated.  "I'm surprised we can even breathe in here, but there is a huge pool over that way."  He gestured behind himself and Alonzo could see reflected light from the sunstones playing upon the ceiling.

"Freshwater?" asked Alonzo, feeling suddenly thirsty.

"No, I don't think so," Morgan answered.  "It's salty and really deep, I couldn't see a bottom."  Another pause ensued while they both wandered across the large cavern to examine the pool.  "Do you think it's the ocean?" Morgan suddenly asked.

Alonzo casually threw a rock into the water and watched it rapidly disappear without a trace.  "I'd say so."  Morgan shivered and glanced around nervously, picturing himself in a cavern deep beneath the ocean.  Outside there would be nothing but black waters everywhere, crushing, all-encompassing, and from which there was no escape.

Just as Morgan was beginning to believe he couldn't become any more frightened, the ground began to shake.  "Uh - Alonzo?" he murmured in a quavering voice.  "Do you think we should get out of here?"

Alonzo was already sprinting in the direction of the tunnel which was approximately a hundred metres away.  Too scared to be indignant over being left behind, Morgan took off after him as best he could, wobbling crazily as the ground twisted and turned beneath his feet.

A huge cracking noise came from overhead and Alonzo paused, glancing up.  He could see the ceiling of the rock cavern fracturing - a jagged line cut straight through it and pieces of rock were already splintering off.  As larger rocks began to fall, Alonzo shouted, "Get back!" and he himself retreated.

Rocks began to rain down from the ceiling, cutting off their only access to the tunnel.  "We're trapped!" yelled Morgan.  Alonzo only shook his head gravely as he saw the split become deeper and the first few drops of water seeped through.

"This whole place is going to be underwater in a matter of minutes," Alonzo called over the persistent roar.  He forced himself to keep breathing steadily.  "We have to get to that tunnel!"

Looking at the other half of the cavern where open space used to be, both Morgan and Alonzo realised that was currently impossible.  Smaller rocks continued to fall but these were no longer the danger.  The true threat lay with the water now surging through the huge crack in the cavern ceiling high above them.

"Can you swim?" Alonzo asked, fighting to be heard over the growing roar of the water.  Morgan looked absolutely petrified.

"I had some lessons but I was never really good at it - I've never had to swim in real life before!"

"It'll have to do," replied Alonzo gravely.  "We need to keep above water as long as possible and then we have two options.  We can stay down here, underwater, until everything settles down and try and find the tunnel."  The rising water now sloshed around their feet and they retreated further backwards to a higher point.  "But it could be a long wait - I don't know if the ceiling's gonna completely cave in or it might just continue to fragment."

Morgan didn't know if he could bear to hold his breath that long, just sitting underwater in complete danger hoping that the roof wouldn't cave in.  "What's the second option?"

"We get out now and swim for the surface."  Alonzo's face was white, and it was the first time Morgan could remember seeing him scared.  "It's the safer choice - it gets us away from the falling rocks but," and then Alonzo paused, taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, "we have no way of knowing how deep underwater we are."

"It could be miles to the surface!" yelped Morgan.

"I know," Alonzo replied gravely. "But if it's not, then we could swim back down here and look for the tunnel when it's calm."

"Or maybe there's some land nearby."  Morgan was suddenly hopeful  about the possibility.  He felt as if his entire life had been spent in underground tunnels and couldn't wait to see the sun again.

Another tremor ran through the ground.  "So what do we do?" cried Morgan.

Their decision was made for them.  With an overwhelming roar, the unstable roof above their heads decided to split and crash down around them, removing any chance of survival.  Alonzo, seeing the huge crack, had two seconds to grab Morgan's arm, tell him to take a huge breath, and jump into the pool to escape to the ocean beyond.

It was very dark.  Morgan followed as best he could behind Alonzo -there was some illumination from sunstones embedded in the walls of the rocky structure they were fleeing.  At first, they swam sideways, desperately hoping that the falling rocks would not hit them.  One large chunk brushed by Morgan's leg and had he not already been scared beyond the point of thinking, he would have screamed.

Thankfully, he didn't.  His mouth was sealed shut against the outside pressure and Morgan was consciously aware that this could be his last breath ever.  He didn't know which way was which, but once the light began to vanish behind them, Alonzo slowed so that the men could swim side by side.

The huge shockwave of the last cave-in finally caught up with them.  Morgan reached out and clung to Alonzo desperately, for if they were separated now he knew he would never make it.  It was a strangely surreal feeling, being thrown around in a dark world, so silent except for muted rumbles, and so much pressure.  Morgan wanted to close his eyes, it would make it easier to bear, because around them there was nothing, nothing but emptiness.

Eventually, the buffeting stopped.  Alonzo released his hold on Morgan and Morgan reciprocated, feeling the tightness in his chest increasing by the millisecond.  He had to breathe, and he had to breathe soon.  Instinctively, Morgan kicked out.

Alonzo, too, had chosen the same direction.  There seemed to be an innate knowledge within them as to which way was up and which way salvation lay.  They swam up forever, it seemed to Morgan.  His lungs were burning, his vision growing blurry, and with every passing moment he had to desperately fight the impulse to suck in a breath.  Instead, he released small bubbles, remembering the diving VR simulations which lectured on the injuries such a change in pressure could cause.

A thin light gradually filtered down to them and Morgan joyfully realised he was heading in the right direction.  His will to live renewed, he kicked out again with more gusto than before.  An image of Bess appeared before his eyes and she seemed to be encouraging him, telling him that he had to survive for her sake.

Finally, just as Morgan was beginning to grow tired (he recalled a dream he'd once had when he was breathing underwater and it would be so easy to just open his mouth and be okay...) his head broke through the surface.  Morgan sucked in a huge breath and sank back, utterly exhausted but alive.

He was alive.  Had he not been so fatigued, he would have whooped with joy and Morgan smiled as he heard Alonzo do so.  They had both made it.  The two men lay back in the water, resting, regaining their strength, and marvelling over the fact that they had survived.

The water around them was teeming with bubbles - liberated air from the cavern, and Morgan reflected that it was almost like a spa bath.  Except for the chill in the water, which he hadn't yet noticed.  He hadn't noticed a lot of things underwater except for the darkness and sense of complete isolation.  Even the bubbles hadn't diminished that sensation.

Finally, Morgan had the strength to look around.  Firstly down, to see how far he had come.  He could not see a thing, not even a light.  In that moment, he knew that the tunnel, if it even still existed, was too far down to ever be returned to.

Then Morgan became aware of laughter.  Alonzo was laughing.  But it wasn't a joyous sound, it was the caustic laughter of one who had been defeated yet again.  Morgan began to spin around, searching in every direction for the land that had to be there.

There was nothing.  For an eternity, blue-grey waters stretched three hundred and sixty degrees around.  There would be no salvation.  There wasn't even any hope.  Nothing but the ferocity of the empty, empty ocean.

Morgan turned to Alonzo and noticed, to his horror, that the other man's eyes were filled with tears.  "We're not gonna make it," he said between sarcastic giggles.  "This is it!  We're going to die."

Alonzo Solace had finally cracked.  And Morgan didn't know if he had it in him to be strong for both of them, but he had to try.  "We need to keep afloat as long as possible," he said softly, feeling his legs begin to ache already from the kicking to stay upright.  "The currents will take us towards land.  They have to!"

Twisting around to observe the whole sky, Morgan saw thunderheads beginning to build up in one direction.  He had no way of knowing if it was north, south, east or west, or a combination of two.  He had nothing to mark his place at all.

And there would be nothing to mark them when they were gone.  Not even a message, for their gear had been lost deep below.  "We have to hold on as long as we can," Morgan repeated, knowing he had to survive for Bess.   He grasped Alonzo's hand.  "Okay?"

Alonzo, finally, nodded.

The two drowning men clung to each other, adrift in a neverending sea of blue.

 ***

Once Danziger and Julia were well clear of the mountain, Julia paused and activated her gear.  "You go on ahead," she motioned.  "I'll be there in a moment, I just want to make a report."

"Right," Danziger agreed and turned his back on her, leaving Julia to make whatever personal recording she had to.  He didn't mean to overhear her words but when he realised what she was saying, he froze.

"Citizen Heller checking in."  Horrified, Danziger watched as Julia spoke at great length to Reilly in their virtual communication.  She told him all about their missing comrades and the current warnings about the asteroid.  Julia even mentioned that she was worried Bess would not be able to function successfully if Morgan wasn't found.

There was a long pause as Reilly obviously responded with information of his own and then Julia finally ended the communication.  Danziger strode up to her, his face filled with fury.

"What the hell is going on?" he almost shouted.

Absolute amazement and confusion crossed Julia's face.  "I'm just updating our current situation to the Council," she replied innocently.  For some reason, Danziger went berserk.

"The Council?!" he yelled.  "Geez, Julia, I thought we'd put this behind us a long time ago."  Roughly, he grabbed her shoulder and tore the gear from her head.

"What do you think you're doing?" Julia asked furiously, her blue eyes flashing ice.  "Get a hold of yourself, John Danziger, or you'll be reported as unstable."

"Me, get a hold of myself?  Just wait until we get back to camp and I tell everyone that you've been spying on us again, probably ever since you pretended to turn your back on the Council.  Why, Julia?" Danziger raged.  "I trusted you!  I liked you, I considered you a friend!  And then you go and pull a stunt like this...."

Bewildered and more than a little indignant, Julia was dragged back to camp.  Danziger's booming voice caused most of Eden Advance to come running from every direction - there were a couple missing, but Danziger figured he could fill them in later.  "I found Julia talking to Reilly," he announced gravely.  "She's been reporting to him the whole time.  She's still with the Council."

Blank stares met Danziger's revelation.  "So?" asked Baines rudely.  "That's nothing new."

"She's been spying on us!"  Desperately, Danziger looked to Devon for support but found nothing but a bewildered sympathy in her eyes.

"Danziger?"  It was Julia speaking and he turned to her with cold fury in his eyes which she matched with equal hostility.  "I think you must have hit your head when you fell over earlier."  She addressed the group as best she could.  "We were in the tunnels and Danziger fell backwards, striking the rocks.  He's got a nasty bruise on his cheek and he must have hit his head as well.  I don't know why he's so worried about the Council all of a sudden."

"The Council tried to kill us!" burst in Danziger.  "Or have you forgotten?"  His face was red with fury as he tried to make everyone understand.  "The Council made us crash here, they put a bomb on our ship!"

"Danziger," Julia said, injecting a soft note into her voice, "are you feeling okay?"  He still wouldn't let go of her hands so she couldn't check his forehead to see if he had a fever, or was chilled, or anything.  "We found out months ago that it was only Blalock who was responsible for the bomb.  And the crash - the crash was nothing more than a tragic accident."

"What?"

Devon seemed only too eager to back Julia up.  "John, you need to lie down for a while," she said softly, coming towards him with outstretched hands.  "Let Julia go," she gently instructed.  "You're going to regret all of this very soon when your memory comes back."

His mind spinning, Danziger released Julia and turned around to look at all the faces surrounding him.  Everyone's eyes showed either confusion or sympathy - no one else was agitated that Julia was reporting to the Council.

Danziger felt Devon gently take his hands and allowed himself to be guided to a tent where a cold compress was placed on his forehead.  Someone injected a sedative into his arm and then Danziger knew nothing but a peaceful sleep.

***

Bess gasped.  A shock coursed through her body, a horrific, psychic certainty of a fact she never wanted to face.  She knew, she knew, that Morgan had died.  She didn't know how and she didn't know why, but she could not escape the terrible sensation of loneliness that suddenly flooded over her.

"Morgan," she whimpered.  "Morgan."  Tears streaming down her face, Bess jumped up from the dinner she was putting together and raced across the campsite blindly.  Julia, she had to tell Julia.  On the way she crashed into True, who was running in the other direction to tell everyone about the small earthquake she had just experienced.

Reaching out to steady the older woman, True asked, "What's wrong?"

For a moment, it seemed as if Bess wouldn't say a thing.  But then the words burst out along with a torrent of fresh tears.  "Morgan and Alonzo," she gasped.  "They're dead."

An ashen colour passed across True's young face, the first true shadow of death and grief she had experienced in many months.  "They're - dead?" she repeated, not wanting to believe it.

"Morgan -  he's gone," cried Bess.  "I felt him leave me, I felt him leave this world.  I know he's not coming back."  Blindly reaching out, she pulled True into a fierce embrace and they clung to each other, sharing mutual grief over the loss of two dearly loved friends.

***

Slowly, Danziger began to wake up.  "How are you feeling?" came Devon's gentle voice.  He groaned.

"I feel like I've been run over by the transrover."  It was true, every part of his body was aching and the drowsiness only compounded the feelings.

"And what about - those things you were saying earlier?" Devon was doing her best to carefully phrase her question.

For a while, Danziger didn't answer.  He remembered the earlier incident with perfect clarity and couldn't imagine why no one had backed him up at all.  The only thing he knew right then was that he was the only one unaffected by some strange pro-Council thoughtwave and that knowledge might be the only thing that could save them all.  Therefore, it was his duty to not be found out so he could act when the time was right.

"I don't remember much at all," Danziger lied.  He looked beseechingly into Devon's eyes.  "What did I say, Adair?"

Thankfully, she seemed to pick up on his overall confusion and chose not to make a big deal of it.  "You seemed really hostile towards the Council, for some reason.  And you owe Julia a big apology."  Devon sighed.  "I'll be very surprised if she doesn't decide to leave you behind after all of this.  But she's a doctor, too, so I guess if anyone understands that hitting your head made you say all this stuff, it would be her."  Pausing, Devon drummed her fingertips on a nearby table.  "I just can't understand what got you so angry.  If the Council wasn't around then we wouldn't even be on G889, you know that!"

"Refresh my memory," grunted Danziger, knowing he was skating on very thin ice.

"The Council funded the entire Eden Project, looking for new places to settle.  They hired all of us - me to design the city at New Pacifica, you to, uh, build.  Same with the rest of your crew.  I know it's a racist division between us and the immigrant workers, but-"

"Save it, Devon," Danziger cut her off.  She looked instantly contrite.

"I'm sorry, I know you don't like me going on about the differences between us.  But think about it, John, what's going to happen when we get back to the space stations?"

Sighing, Danziger responded, "I don't want to think about it."

"That's just the problem!" Devon burst out.  "You don't think about it, you keep dodging around this attraction between us and won't give me a straight answer."

I'm the one? Danziger wondered to himself.  He opened his mouth to rebuff that assumption when there came a loud rumbling and Devon looked around nervously.

"What was that?" asked Danziger.

"Another earthquake, I think," Devon quickly replied.  "They're becoming more and more frequent and I'm beginning to think that Reilly was wrong and the Terrians are right."  Her eyes were wide.  "John - I'm afraid."

Danziger sat up and reached out to her and to his delight, she scooted over into his lap and let him wrap his arms around her. "Reilly's been monitoring the asteroid for months but didn't think it was of any consequence," Devon explained.  "It's right there like the Terrians told Alonzo, but it's not going to come near enough to G889 to cause any damage.  Maybe an extra big tide, but that's about it, according to Reilly's calculations.

"But if you consider what the Terrians are saying," continued Devon, "it's not the asteroid we should be worried about, instead, we should fear its proximity and the electric forces it causes throughout the entire planet.  Like the earthquakes."  Devon shivered.  "There's no way we can escape.  If the worst comes to worst the Council can move their ship safely away, but we're stuck down here."

Her voice took on a sorrowful tone.  "John, unless the Terrians do something spectacular, we're all going to die.  I don't want to die alone," she whispered, almost as an afterthought.

"You won't," he whispered softly in her ear.  "I'll always be here for you."  She felt so soft and warm in his arms, and so natural,as if she was always meant to be there.  Unable to stop himself, Danziger brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.

She smiled at him.  Just smiled, didn't slap him for being rude, didn't indignantly jump away from him, and didn't even hastily make up an excuse to leave.  Danziger realised that she liked it, she liked being this close to him.  He grew more bold, forcing away the disturbing thoughts of the Council and the asteroid as he concentrated on Devon in his arms.

Hesitantly at first, he kissed her softly on the mouth.  To his immense surprise and joy, she  responded.  It was a sweet, shy kiss, the first between two people who had longed for each other for so many months.  They broke apart for a moment, breathing heavily for such a soft kiss, each knew that it was more intense than it had appeared.  Devon's eyes flew open and met Danziger's, mere inches from her own.  They stared at each other for a few long seconds, so close, so connected, feeling the soft breath of the other person on their moist lips.

And finally, when Danziger thought he would truly drown in the liquid pools of fire that were Devon's eyes, he found himself leaning forward and they were kissing again.  This time, the kiss was much deeper, much more passionate as they joined together in a new kind of closeness.

Somehow, Danziger found himself lowering Devon to the bed as they continued to kiss.  Her hands were electric down his back and he suppressed a shiver.  It had been so long since he'd been with any woman like this and at that moment, he couldn't remember anyone else but Devon.

Gently, he caressed firstly her arms, her back, and then his hands grew more bold as he began to explore more of her body.  Devon moaned softly into his hair as his mouth followed his hands, kissing a trail down her neck to the top of her shirt.  Tentatively, Danziger let one hand wander gently across to cover her breast.

Devon froze.  Danziger removed his offending hand so fast it was as if it had been shot away.  He pulled back slightly so he could see Devon's face, flushed red.  Her eyes were closed.

"Sorry," he murmured, embarrassed as hell.  He should have known not to try to go too far with Devon Adair - it was only their first kiss!  But she had been seeming to enjoy it so much....

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Devon opened her eyes and looked at him.  "No, I'm sorry," she replied.  "You weren't doing anything wrong, I was giving out some pretty mixed signals  
there...."  She propped herself up on her elbows and Danziger moved aside to give her some room.

She took a deep breath.  "John, I - I've never actually, you know," Devon Adair was actually blushing! "been with a man," she finished in a small voice.

Incredulous, Danziger had to fight to keep the surprise from showing on his face.  "Oh," was the only thing he could manage to say while inside his mind was racing.  Devon Adair, the formidable Devon Adair, thirty-something years old, had never been kissed like that before?  A wave of something washed over Danziger and he recognised it as an instinctive need to protect Devon, to teach her things and show her just how wonderful it could be.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Danziger was finally able to ask.

Swallowing hard, Devon fought to overcome her pride and embarrassment.  This was John Danziger, the only man she had ever been able to trust other than her father and Yale.  He deserved to hear her story, her explanation, and maybe he would understand her.  More than that, maybe he would still want her despite her earlier rejection.

"There's no deep dark secret in my past," Devon began, mostly to reassure him.  "It just never really happened for me.  All through my childhood, you know I was tutored at home.  I didn't meet many kids because I was always with Yale and he was the only friend I thought I needed.  And I think the other kids were always afraid of me or something, looking back I can see it's because I was such a snob.  I knew I was smart and I thought I was beautiful,"

"You are," interrupted Danziger.  She smiled gratefully at him.

"I told myself I didn't need friends.  I saw vids of teenagers getting pregnant and it scared the hell out of me.  I didn't even date until my final year at university."

Danziger was astounded.  "You mean no one even asked you out?"

"I think they were afraid to," Devon admitted.  "And the few that did ask me out - well, I always turned them down.  I told myself I was too busy and that I didn't need anyone if I was going to own a business within a couple of years."  Smiling briefly, Devon recalled how she had achieved her goals, brilliantly, in fact.

"But then I did go on a few dates and everything was fine until this one incident...I finally met someone I couldn't control.  I didn't believe that he would try and take advantage of me but he did, try, I mean," Devon quickly amended.

His eyes wide, Danziger asked, "What happened?"

"There was another man who just happened to come along at the right time.  Kind of like a knight in shining armour, I always dreamed he'd come back for me.  That's part of the reason why I never let myself get close to another man after that - I was afraid because I suddenly realised that I wasn't as strong as I thought, I couldn't control everything that happened, and I was also hoping he would come back someday.  Only I never found out who he was...." and Devon's voice trailed off as she looked straight at Danziger and suddenly, she knew.

"It was you!" she exclaimed.  "How-"

Hastily, Danziger improvised.  "You mean, that was you I helped all those years ago?"  He let out a low whistle.  "Incredible!"

Devon stared at him.  "You want to explain some things?"

His heart beating faster again, Danziger wondered when she would realise that she hadn't seen a young John Danziger, she'd seen him at the age he was right now.  "I was a drone, I wasn't even supposed to be in your area of the station.  That's why I left without telling you my name - I didn't want any kind of recognition."

"Exactly the honourable type of thing you'd do," Devon smiled at him.  She reached out and took his hand in hers.  "Imagine," she said.  "All those years I dreamed of a mystery man and I didn't even notice when I found him."

Surprised, Danziger watched the light in Devon's eyes.  He would never have guessed that she was such a romantic at heart, fantasising of someone she'd known only a few seconds.  "Does that mean I can kiss you again?" he asked lightly.

Devon's response was deadly serious.  "Yes."  Then they were silent as their lips took part in a dance quite different to conversation, but this time, taking it much more slowly.  A subdued exploration of each others' bodies was cut short when True burst into the tent, shouting, "Come quick, something's happening!"

Devon and Danziger had not noticed the increasing frequency of the earthquakes, so absorbed had they been in their own private world.  When they reached the world outside their tent, they saw that chaos had erupted everywhere.

Where no mountains had been before, huge monoliths had pushed their way out of the ground.  There was a chill wind in the air coupled with evil moanings from the planet itself as volcanoes suddenly sprouted all over the continent and beyond.

But it wasn't that which had so excited True.  "Look at the mountain!" she shouted, her voice tinged with fear, and she pointed to the place which had taken Morgan and Alonzo from them.

Perhaps two hundred Terrians stood stiffly around the mountain, their legs parted in a muscular stance and their staffs lifted high above their heads.  Lightning crackled from each staff and surges of electricity jumped out towards a central point every so often.  Yet the Terrians didn't seem able to maintain an apex of power.

"Devon!  Get over here!" commanded Julia and Devon quickly complied.  Danziger followed, gradually comprehending that it was Julia who appeared to be in charge now.

"It's just like Alonzo said," Julia told Devon.  "A network of power, but the Terrians can't hold it.  And if they can't keep it together, then they can't possibly link up with all the other groups across the planet and stabilise the asteroid's energies."

"How long until the asteroid reaches critical position?" Devon breathed, her voice thin and worried.

"Twenty minutes.  Dammit!" Julia swore.  "I told Reilly we should put more faith in Alonzo's dreams but he never would listen to me!"  Almost as an afterthought, Julia added, "Did you know that Alonzo and Morgan are probably dead?"

Danziger could scarcely believe the callous tone that Julia adopted.  She was talking about her lover, for Gaal's sake!

He heard Devon gasp and another shadow crossed her face.  "How do you know?" she whispered.

Julia shrugged.  "Bess says she could always sense Morgan's presence but now it's gone.  I don't know if I should believe her or not, but if Alonzo and Morgan were anywhere near an unstable region when the planet started going berserk then it stands to reason that they didn't survive.  I'm surprised we're still here," she finished.

Danziger watched the interchange carefully, his suspicions growing.  He knew things were different - Julia being in charge, the Council connections - until now he had been able to attribute it all to hitting his head and having some weird hallucination.  But the changes had come about only after his "dream" of Devon on the stations.

What if he'd really gone back in time and changed things?  But he hadn't even gone near Uly with the Terrian DNA!  Uly.  Oh God.

"Where's Uly?" Danziger suddenly burst out, interrupting Julia and Devon's intense conversation.  Both women looked blankly at him.

"Who?"

"Your son, Devon.  Ulysses Adair!  He should be up there with the Terrians, helping them to stabilise their energy circuit."

"John, you know I don't have a son," Devon said flatly.

That was when the full consequences of his actions hit Danziger.  "Oh shit."  He whirled around wildly, seeing G889 begin to tear itself to pieces.  And it was all his fault - he had changed the past and now the future would be destroyed.

A huge rumbling sounded beneath their feet and a glowing rock thrust itself through the earth right between Julia and Devon.  Devon screamed, throwing herself backwards into Danziger's arms.  She hugged him desperately, tears running down her cheeks.  "We're going to die," she cried.

Mechanically, Danziger patted her soothingly.  This wasn't his Devon either.  Everything was different, everything.

"Hold me, John," Devon begged.  "Hold me until I can't feel anymore."  She pressed herself even closer to him as the thundering increased, the sky becoming dark with ash and dirt.  Unchannelled lightning crackled above the mountain and as Danziger watched, horrified, Terrians began to fall.

"This is all wrong, it shouldn't be happening like this," Danziger murmured into Devon's hair.  She hugged him even tighter, fearfully witnessing the destruction of the planet over Danziger's shoulder.  Fire seemed to be raining down from the sky - the result of debris mixed with lightning.  The terrible humming of uncontrolled power did not cease.

"Daddy!" someone screamed and Danziger whirled himself and Devon around.  True!  How could he have forgotten her so easily?  She was sitting with Bess over by the remnants of the fireplace and the pair clung to each other as yet another earthquake rocked the ground.

"I'm coming, True-girl!" he shouted.  Releasing Devon and then grabbing her with one arm, Danziger began to run towards his daughter.  The ground commenced shaking again, even more violently than before, and then, to Danziger's horror, a huge chasm opened up in front of True and Bess.

True screamed, jumping up and scrambling backwards but she wasn't fast enough to escape the splitting ground.  All too soon, the earth claimed Bess and True while Danziger could do nothing but watch.

"No!" he shouted.

"Oh John, I'm so sorry," Devon whispered.  She clung to him desperately.  "Maybe it's better that it's over for them sooner."

"No!" Danziger protested again.  "This isn't supposed to happen, it's all wrong!"  He turned to again face the mountain, seeing only a few battle-scarred Terrians wearily sinking into the dirt.  In that moment, he knew that his only hope of salvation was to go back.

He pulled Devon close one last time and kissed her desperately.  "That's just a promise of things to come when I get back," he vowed.  Then Danziger let her go, turned his back on her, and ran for the mountain.

"John!" she screamed at him.  "Where are you going?  Don't leave me here!  John!"

It tore at his heart to hear her words, but he knew that far more was at stake.  Better to leave this Devon behind and hope that he could repair the damage he'd done in the past than to stay with her and watch a world die.  But all the time he could hear her terrified screaming and it made him want to curl up inside because he was leaving her alone to face the horror.

Finally, he reached the mountain and saw the veins of energy pulsating with more fervour than ever before.  Rocks tumbled down all around him and Danziger bent over double, hoping and praying that none would hit him before he made it inside the cave.  His mind was reaching out to the Terrians, asking them why this had happened, and why had he been chosen to do what they asked?

A ghostly echo in his head was the only answer Danziger got.  "You have done it before, you are doing it now, you will do it again...."

An explosion rocked the planet and it screamed as it was torn apart, huge masses of itself bursting away from the inner core and momentarily became floating continents in the depths of space.  Danziger didn't stop, he just kept running and running until he was inside the cave and he threw himself into the transdimensional tunnel that had begun it all.

Fragments of a once-beautiful realm floated eerily in space; lifeless chunks of dead matter that no longer contained any living beings, or life-sustaining energy.  The two moons were thrown into new orbits of the sun but these, too, were so cold, all life had been extinguished from the entire system.  Even Reilly's orbiting ship could not escape the debris and soon it was nothing more than pieces of twisted metal floating amongst a new field of asteroids.

And the original asteroid, the bringer of havoc, floated on harmlessly, all ties with its mother having finally been severed.

G889 was dead.

 ***

Everything was dark.  Everything was silent.  There wasn't even the calming sound of breathing.  Either he was dead, or he'd forgotten how to breathe.  Danziger didn't have a clue which explanation was the correct one.

He had witnessed G889 blowing to pieces.  For a moment, a milli-second which had stretched forever, Danziger had been floating alone in space, separated from everything corporeal but hopefully enshrouded by strings of energy that belonged to the space-time tunnels which were no more.

Had they thrown him back to the stations?, Danziger found himself wondering, or was he truly dead.  If he was dead, then his heart shouldn't be beating.  Was it beating?  He still couldn't hear a thing.  He tentatively lifted one hand to his neck and searched for a pulse.  Nothing.  But at least now he knew that he had a hand, and a body.  If he really was dead then he wouldn't have either of those, or so he hoped.

Danziger pounded on his chest and was rewarded with a shudder which  passed through his whole body.  His heart began to beat, his lungs involuntarily sucked inwards, and air began to enter his body once again.  And with those first few breaths, Danziger knew where he was and silently laughed into the blackness, tears coursing down his cheeks.  Somehow, he had made it.  He was back on the stations.

He propelled himself into a sitting position and just stayed like that for a while, turning over and over in his mind the enormity and impossibility of what had just happened to him.  Remembering what had happened to True, and to Devon and everyone else he cared about, Danziger wanted to cry.  Even the death of Julia, the cold-bitch version who belonged to the Council, preyed on his conscience.  His actions had created those people, his actions had condemned them to die.

However, through some miracle of magic or destiny, Danziger had a chance to correct his earlier mistakes.  But what were they?  He reviewed the evidence in his mind - Eden Advance was on G889 working for the Council, with Julia Heller in charge.  That indicated that it wasn't a private operation as it had been in Danziger's original reality - it hadn't been funded by Devon Adair.

And why? Danziger asked himself.  The answer was immediately obvious.  Devon didn't have a son, not to mention a reason for leaving the stations.  No Ulysses equalled no Eden Project for the reasons Danziger remembered: to try and heal the Syndrome sick children.

The rationale for their being no Ulysses anymore had to be related to Danziger's own actions during his brief throw-back in time.  And there was only one thing it could be....

When Danziger realised what had to be done, or more correctly, undone, he felt sick to his stomach.  It was like a physical blow and had he not already been sitting on the ground, Danziger would have sank down in horror.  He had to stop himself interfering during the incident between Devon and Brett.  He had to stand by and let Devon get hurt.

Every part of Danziger's being was fighting against this revelation even as the more rational side of his brain tried to explain it.  'It's already happened in the past, there's nothing you could have done to change it and your being here was only an accident.  It has to happen, for the sake of the future.'

He didn't want to believe it was true but couldn't deny the scant evidence that he did have.  And once it was over, he could hope that the timeline was back to its proper state and Ulysses Adair would be alive and healthy on G889.

Thinking of the changes the Terrians had wanted, Danziger still didn't know if he could be a part of that.  One thing he was sure of, though, was this time, when he got back to G889, he would tell Devon absolutely everything.  Well, maybe not everything - he decided he would leave out the part of his own interference and its subsequent consequences - but he would certainly ask for her opinions on what the Terrians wanted.  It should be Devon's choice. That was, as long as everything got back to normal.  It was up to Danziger to make sure that happened.

When he'd finally managed to get his thoughts, not to mention his breathing, under control, Danziger climbed to his feet and warily felt his way around.  He surmised he was in a warehouse of some kind - what felt like large crates were neatly stacked either side of him.

Gradually, Danziger made his way to the end of the aisle and noticed a dim exit sign above the doorway.  He quickly slipped through it, glad that it wasn't locked from the inside, and took stock of his surroundings.

Now Danziger had a new problem - to find out where he was in relation to Devon and get to her before it was too late.  A quick glance at the warehouse keypad outside the door showed him that it was early evening.  Danziger had no way of knowing if it was even the same date as his last strange excursion to the stations but he forced himself to trust the Terrians and believe that it was.

Good fortune was with John Danziger that evening.  He followed the long corridor and eventually arrivedat a market place.  If thisspace station followed the traditional design, all of the shops and entertainment areas would be in approximately the same position, the higher-class establishments on higher levels.  Danziger found an elevator and went up.

The place was named "Straczynski Boulevard" - a lavish offering of fancy restaurants and VR houses.  Danziger was bestowed with many dirty looks as he peered into the various establishments, hoping to see a beautiful young woman with auburn hair and a weevil for an escort.  Amazingly enough, he found her.

He was refused entry into the restaurant,and looking down at himself, Danziger could easily understand why.  His clothes were streaked with dirt, the irrevocable evidence of G889's passing.  Sooty marks lined his face although he wasn't aware of these, and a fine layer of dust covered his golden curls.  He was a mess, but he didn't care.  He could have a shower later.

So he loitered outside the restaurant for what seemed hours, glancing inside every so often to check that Devon was still there.  From his vantage point, it seemed as if Devon was forcing herself to have a good time.  Her laughter was over-exaggerated, almost as if she was putting on a show for everyone else.  Remembering his earlier conversation with Devon, Danziger decided that she probably was.

When the couple's meal was finally over, it was quite late.  Danziger shrank back into the shadows as Devon and Brett exited the restaurant and passed quite close to him, and then he began discreetly tailing the pair.  It was the only way to find out where Devon's apartment was - citizen records such as a person's address were kept private in all station databases.

Danziger knew he would be cutting it very fine once they arrived.  He would have all of two seconds to get past the surprised couple and somehow stop himself from interrupting their fight.  His mind reeled just thinking about it.

Devon and Brett rounded another corner into a corridor that looked very familiar to Danziger.  This was it.  He put his head down and ran, knocking into Brett but not caring very much (the bastard deserves it, he justified) and skidded around the corner to face...himself.

"What the hell...?" began the other Danziger as Danziger lifted his fist and socked his other self in the jaw, just where Brett had punched him earlier.  The other Danziger flew backwards, obviously astonished at the sudden turn of events.

"I'm sorry," Danziger whispered to himself and picked the man up as best as he could, pushing him further down the corridor to where he knew the end of the transdimensional tunnel was waiting.  The other Danziger was just beginning to struggle when he was thrown into the mysterious light and vanished to another reality.

Danziger heaved a huge sigh of relief.  He'd done it - he'd punched himself and gotten him out of the way.  It was a very creepy  feeling.  And now he had to see if it was all worth it.

In a tragic parody of his earlier actions, Danziger peered around the corner to see Devon and Brett standing outside her door.  It was already open, Devon was struggling to escape Brett's hold.  A lump rose in Danziger's throat.

Brett roughly pushed Devon backwards and she let out a small cry of fear.  Danziger wanted to tear his eyes away but he was compelled to watch, he couldn't not watch the terrible thing happening to the woman he loved.  Tears began to appear in his eyes.

Brett gave one more vicious shove and the two disappeared inside.  That was when Danziger could take it no more.  He sidled down the corridor and tried to block out the screams he knew were coming from her.  He was absolutely powerless to do anything, he could only pray that Devon would, somehow, be all right.

 ***

She was pregnant.  Oh God, she was pregnant.  Devon pressed her hands against her mouth and fought the impulse to scream or throw up.  She was pregnant.  How could this have happened to her?

She knew full well how it had happened but didn't want to believe it.  For the past few weeks, Devon had been trying desperately to exorcise the memory of Brett, and that night, from her mind.  Yet so many "if onlys" kept coming back to haunt her.  If only she hadn't been so fiercely independent and moved away from the family home - and Yale.  If only she hadn't allowed him to escort her home.  If only she'd been able to reach her gear and call for help.  
If only she'd never gone on a date in the first place.

Gasping for breath, Devon sank against the wall of her spacious bathroom.  She didn't want to believe it but another glance at the test results confirmed the awful truth that she was going to have a baby.

Devon stared down at her flat abdomen, already hating the thing that was growing inside of her.  It was a horrible reminder, a legacy of Brett, an insurance that she would never forget him.  How Devon despised Brett at that moment.  She wanted to kill him.  If only she had the power to do so.

But that was the one thing money couldn't buy.  All of her wealth, her sheltered life, the opportunities she'd been given - all of it was useless.  It hadn't saved her when she most needed help and it wouldn't assist her now.

She couldn't go to anyone for help, not her family, not even Yale.  If she knew the Adairs at all, they would just try and sweep it under a rug to keep their good name untarnished.  They wouldn't be on her side, they would find a way to twist around the whole affair and blame her for it.

And, Devon reflected, it was her fault anyway.  She'd been warned not to go out with Brett by a colleague at work who'd briefly dated him.  But like always, Devon hadn't listened.  Headstrong, wilful, determined, she thought she could control anyone.  Devon learned the hard way how wrong she was.

Now it was up to Devon, alone, to decide what to do about it.  Still glaring at her stomach, her body spasmed and she finally gave in to the impulse to be sick.  Was that how it would be for the coming weeks - throwing up every morning?  Devon couldn't take that, she couldn't.  It was further proof of what she already half-believed - a child made from an evil act could never amount to anything good.

She didn't want it.  She wanted to rip this -thing- from her body and never think about it again, deny that it had ever happened.  Yet that was impossible.

The rational part of Devon's mind began to take over as she considered her options.  Having the baby herself - well, that was out of the question.  Why go through so much pain for something that was only a horrible reminder?

She could always have the foetus removed and given to a childless couple, to be implanted into another mother's womb.  Devon thanked modern science that such a thing could be done; it alleviated many of the feelings of guilt and remorse associated with...the third option.

Abortion.  Suddenly, a realisation dawned over Devon that this was the only choice for her.  Adoption, even of a child barely eight weeks developed, would involve a wealth of questionnaires, interviews, and legalities.  Inevitably, her family and the media would be sure to learn of it and that would cause even more pain and humiliation.

Devon knew that, even though the baby was partially hers, she couldn't bring herself to keep it.  She couldn't, she just couldn't.

It chilled her to think of killing her own child but when she came down to it, that was the only thing she could do.  Mustering all of her resolve, Devon shakily got up and began to make inquiries.  
She told herself over and over that this was the best decision and the only way to erase the traumas of the past.

Devon didn't know that this action would only compound the terrible scars she now bore.  It was a decision she could never forget.

 ***

As the weeks passed, John Danziger became more and more nervous.  He was keeping tabs on Devon as best he could and watching for any signs that she was pregnant.  But there was nothing.

At first, he'd been surprised that the transdimensional tunnel was no longer there for him to return to, but then Danziger realised that in his time-space reality, G889 had been blown up.  It probably wouldn't return until Uly was born and only then could a tunnel reappear to take him home.

That was the best explanation Danziger could come up with.  He didn't want to consider the other possibility - that he was stuck on the space stations forever.  He'd carefully stored away the clothing he'd arrived in, rationalising that he'd need to change back into it for the return trip, and the small bag of dirty clothes were the only real possessions he had.  Every day for him was so hard - he had no identity save for the one that belonged to a man ten years younger than himself.  Thankfully, that younger John Danziger worked well away from the upper-class populated space stations so the probability of their paths crossing, or someone even recognising him, were remote.

Every so often, Danziger would laugh as he realised that, for a brief space of time, there had been three of himself wandering around the stations.  If he'd told himself that ten years ago, he would never have believed it.  Then again, he never would have believed a lot of things about G889, so overall, it was in the realm of possibility.

Danziger worked at what jobs he could - mostly secretive dealings on the underground market.  Try as they might, with the chain of superstores to provide for all stations citizens' needs, a clandestine network still flourished for those who did not have sufficient means of supporting the many hidden taxes endowed by the various governments.

Ten years ago, Danziger had kept away from these underground societies out of pride and a desire to protect True from such unpleasantness.  Now, Danziger had no such qualms.  He did what he had to, to survive.  His future depended on it.

He couldn't have made it through those first few days without the help of an old friend: Alex Wentworth.  In secret, Danziger had contacted her and begged her to accept him as he was and never, ever tell his other self about this.  She'd been suspicious of him at first but gradually, Danziger had earned her trust by telling her things that only he would know.

During their few meetings, Danziger had been fought an overwhelming urge to warn Alex of her fate so that things could be different.  If only he could give her some small message...but he had learned the hard way that the past was not to be tampered with.  Anything he said now would most probably end in chaos just like the last time.  So Danziger treated his times with Alex as something infinitely precious, a last chance with a very special friend.

It was so difficult for Danziger to watch time pass - again.  He turned his mental clock back ten years and had anyone needed a psychic, Danziger was their man.  He remembered the noteworthy news events and could predict much of the station-changing future that was going to occur.  But he kept silent, watching it all with a jaded eye.

He did not dare approach Devon, or anyone else he would know later in life.  But it pained his heart when he saw a young Julia travelling about the station, looking so innocent and lonely.  She was a mere teenager being buffeted about by the controlling forces of her parents and most probably, the Council.  Danziger wished he could help her but was bound to do nothing.

Every so often, he dreamed of the Terrians.  But it was never contact, no matter how often Danziger demanded to know what had happened to him and why wasn't he back on G889?

And when Uly's birthdate, engraved on Danziger's mind, came and went without any significance (he checked every newsnet he could - births were always listed, especially for persons as prominent as a member of the Adair family), Danziger knew that he had failed again.  He sought out Devon the next day - he'd stayed away from her for many months because he didn't want to face the truth of what his eyes were telling him: that Devon wasn't pregnant.

He found her sitting alone in a small cafe, looking thin and haggard.  Her division of the Adair corporation was floundering, the most recent of her designs had been ridiculed by the media.  There were dark circles under Devon's eyes and she seemed to have lost all appreciation of life.  In fact, she looked almost suicidal.

A chill went through Danziger as he saw her.  He asked himself again, what had gone wrong?  Just like before, there was no Uly.  But Danziger didn't think that this Devon would be offered a position on a Council-controlled expedition to G889.  Her credentials were crumbling daily.

Worst of all, there was no one Danziger could go to for help or answers.  His stomach turned as Devon pushed aside her coffee and morosely sunk her head into her arms.  An utterly defeated woman.  Where was her strength, her backbone, her spirit?  'Lost that night' was the only possibility that came back to him.

It all hinged around that night, Danziger was forced to accept.  It was approximately nine months before Uly's birthdate and all the right signs had been there.  Brett had to have been Uly's father yet for some reason, it hadn't turned out like that.  And Danziger could not figure out why because as far as he knew, he hadn't interfered at all.  Everything had happened as it was supposed to happen.

Danziger didn't know what to do.  More than anything, he wanted to reach out and comfort Devon, to show her that she wasn't all alone in the universe.  But that was an impossibility, it would only make things worse.  He could only continue to watch from afar.

And time passed.

 ***

"ADAIR FAMILY'S SHOCK SUICIDE!" screamed the news headlines.  Intrigued, Morgan Martin read the article, feeling a small sense of satisfaction that the "great Adair family" wasn't so perfect after all.  One of the younger family members, a woman called Devon, had been found alone in her apartment with her wrists slashed.

The report went on to give the unstable woman's history - a promising career had gradually fallen by the wayside.  This Devon woman had shunned her family, she had no friends and had gradually spiralled downwards into a pit of depression.  It was also hinted that she had an innate hatred of men - possibly linked to a trauma in the past that the Adair family had covered up.

Morgan read the sensationalist innuendo and was taken in by it, hook line and sinker.  He barely noticed the tables around him filling up fast as the lunchtime rush truly took hold, so absorbed was he in the latest gossip.  Morgan desperately needed a woman in his life.

"Mind if I take a seat?" someone asked.

Morgan barely glanced up and said, "Sure, go ahead."

Alonzo Solace gracefully dropped into the empty chair, placing his hot lunch in front of him.  As usual, he was only passing through and hadn't made any special acquaintances - yet.  But he was sure it wouldn't be long before some girl 'accidentally' bumped into him, or vice versa.

He was casually glancing around the place, grinning as if he had some great secret, when his eyes were drawn to the front page of Morgan's newspaper.  His movement came to a standstill.  "Oh my God," he breathed, noticing the picture.  "Devon!"

Morgan looked up at his coincidental lunch partner.  "Did you know her?" he asked, dying to hear more gossip.

Grabbing the page, Alonzo asked, "Do you mind if I just-" and quickly read the article.  At the end he was visibly shocked and shook his head sadly.  "The poor girl.  The last time I saw her she was so happy!  I was sure she was gonna make a billion by the time she was twenty-five."

"Do you think it's all true?" Morgan asked.

Alonzo replied without even thinking.  He was upset and needed a friendly ear.  "It could have happened - oh, I don't know.  I haven't seen her in," he quickly calculated how long he'd been away, "four years.  Four long years.  If only I'd come back sooner...."

Morgan watched the other man, seeing the pain on his face.  "Were you close?"  Morgan was beginning to sense this man's need to talk and pushed his own curiosity aside.

"We dated once, I think.  Devon never had time to date many people - she decided we were better off as friends and I agreed with her at the time.  I'm a sleep jumper," Alonzo revealed, "and Devon was one of the few people who was okay with that.  She said she'd keep me in mind if she ever needed a pilot."  Sighing, Alonzo gently traced the outline of her face in the small picture.  "Guess she won't need one now."

"I'm sorry," Morgan offered.  The two men continued talking long after that and the beginnings of a friendship were formed.  From then on, Alonzo had a new friend to look up every time he returned to that particular port.  Even though the Eden Project did not exist, it seemed these two men were destined to find each other regardless.  A strange bond arisen out of sharing their deaths in another reality.

 ***

He couldn't believe it.  As he stared at the news report, he fought to deny it, every fibre in his body screaming that the news could not be true.  He flicked to another program and it reported exactly the same thing.

Danziger staggered backwards.  It was as if someone had physically shot him in the heart, the news was shocking, devastating, and something he never ever wanted to face.

Devon, his Devon, was dead.  Suicide, they all said.  As much as he wanted to deny it, Danziger knew it could only be true.  And it was his fault.  He was possibly the only person on the space station who cared for her in recent months.  He loved her, more and more with each day they were apart.  And she was forever lost to him.

Danziger wanted to die.  Everything was useless now, his whole quest, his whole reason for living in this hell known as the stations.  True was dead, and now Devon, the only future hope, was dead as well.  G889 was gone.  Uly was gone.  It was all gone and he had nothing.  He couldn't even go visit his younger self and interfere there.  Danziger didn't dare go near anyone he'd once known because he seemed to have the deadly touch.

Every life he went near soon crumbled.  His only choice was to stay underground and away from everything.

It was a chaotic mess, explainable only by the Terrians who were twenty-two years away on a project that didn't even exist anymore.  But in those dark, dark hours after learning of Devon's death, Danziger swore viciously at the Terrians and blamed them for everything.

He sat, alone in his shadowy room, just thinking of her.  Thinking of the light in her eyes that had been extinguished forever, the love in her heart that was now gone.  Thinking of his Devon and how it was all his fault that she was dead.  He should have gone to her when it was obvious Uly wasn't going to eventuate.  He should have showed Devon that, despite all her problems, somebody cared.  Maybe they could even have had a future together in this twisted world.

But it was too late.  And as the months continued to pass, Danziger found that he didn't even care anymore about anything, because she was gone.

 ***

Light years away, a lone Terrian looked up at the sky and mournfully wailed.  It sensed the years passing all too quickly and somehow knew that the Link was missing.  The Terrian lifted its head to trill at the crossing moons, a bizarre form of communication that extended beyond the realm of explainable science.  The asteroid, too, was caught up in the web of tragic possibilities, and the secret emblem on its side, which had been there since the beginning of time, faded into nothingness.

The Terrian received its answer - there was nothing to be done.  Every ensuing Mooncross for the next several years, the Terrian returned to this particular spot and asked the same question, hoping for a different reply.  But nothing ever changed.  Even the hope of the Traveller was lost, he had been pulled down into a tragic darkness of his own making.  Time moved on, relentlessly, towards G889's destruction.  There would be no Link to come and save them all.

 ***

Morgan Martin had been married for several months and was loving it.  Or so he kept telling himself.  In the beginning it had been wonderful and magical - with Bess behind him, he was sure he'd make it to Level 6 and beyond in no time!

But it hadn't happened.  Morgan was still stagnating at the same old level 3, nothing had changed, his work was still boring and his colleagues despised him.  It wasn't fair.  He said so to Bess as he wearily came home one afternoon, mentally exhausted from long sessions in VR between the many boring reports.

"Maybe you should take the initiative, Morgan," Bess suggested.  Her words were meant to be kind and gently encouraging but she was increasingly irritated with Morgan's recent behaviour and the suggestion came out as an accusation.  Somehow, he seemed to be blaming her for his failure to go anywhere.

"Take the initiative - what's that supposed to mean?" he whined.  "I don't know how level 4 works, no one ever tells me a thing!"  Morgan sank into his favourite chair, noticing that his pillow was missing.

"Bess, where's my pillow?"

"I threw it out," she replied crisply.  "Morgan, you've had that thing since you were seventeen.  It was falling apart at the seams."  Bess crossed the room and picked up another pillow.  "Here, you can use this one."

"I don't want that one!" Morgan complained.  He sighed heavily, now even more annoyed.  He wanted to come home for some sympathy and perhaps relaxing massage, not to discover that Bess had been destroying his private sanctuary on the couch by throwing out the one pillow that nestled nicely behind his VR gear.

VR - now that would be the best way to pass the evening and not think about work.  "I'm tired, Bess," he said to her.  "How soon is dinner?"

Pursing her lips, Bess replied, "You can have it whenever you get up and make it."  She was getting tired of filling the role of a nineteenth-century wife.  When they had first married, Bess had been more than willing to do this and more for Morgan, she loved him that much.  But gradually, the initial glow of marriage had begun to fade and everything that had so endeared Morgan to her was now annoying.

Like his VR habit.  And his inability to get anywhere further at work.  She watched him pick up his gear from the small table in front of him and suddenly burst out, "Morgan, can't you even go one day without using that stupid thing?"

He turned to her with a look of surprise on his face.  Clearly, it said that he thought she was crazy for even suggesting such a thing.  "I'm in the middle of a great program and I'll forget what I'm doing if I leave it too long!" he protested.  "You should join me more often, Bess, I'm sure you'd love it."

"Ha," she snorted, pacing the room.  "Morgan, I think if you spent more time out of VR, then you would find that your work isn't so bad.  And maybe the company wouldn't look straight past you next time they're giving out promotions."

Morgan didn't respond (he couldn't think of an appropriate comeback) and that annoyed Bess even more.  "Morgan - what's happened to you?  When we met I thought you were the most ambitious man I'd ever met.  You had a fire, a spark when you told me you were going to go on to do great things.

"And now," she continued, gathering steam, "look at you!  You do nothing but sit in that chair every night and moan about how unfair the world is.  And I, just like the loving wife I'm supposed to be, sit there and take it.  Well, Morgan Martin, would you like to know something?"

He was staring at her, suddenly afraid, because he'd never heard Bess use that tone with him before.

"I've had enough," she declared.  "I can't take this anymore, I can't live like this."

That got Morgan's attention.  "Bess, no-" he began but she cut him off.

"I don't even know if you love me anymore, Morgan!  With all your complaining, did you ever stop to think how I feel?  Did you?"

Abashed, Morgan could only shake his head.  Bess' love was the one constant in his universe that kept him sane, and if he had lost that....

"I'm sorry, Bess," he tried but she would not be appeased.

"I'm leaving," she announced.

Morgan jumped to his feet. "No!" he protested.  "Bess, you can't go!"

"Oh can't I?" Bess countered rapidly, fighting to keep the pain from showing on her face.  She didn't want to leave but her marriage couldn't go on the way it was.  If it did, she would go crazy.

"Stay, Bess," he pleaded.

"I can't stay here with you.  Not until something changes.  And don't promise me that you're going to change, Morgan, because I've heard it all before.  I need proof, I need to see that you've done something, and until that happens," Bess gulped, "I can't stay with you."

"Then I'll leave," Morgan quickly declared.  Their small apartment was in his name and if Bess stayed there then he wouldn't be losing her so easily.  "Just give me a chance, Bess," he begged.  "I'll show you what I can do, I'll turn over a new leaf, I'll - I'll even leave my VR gear behind!"  That was the ultimate sacrifice for him and they both knew it.

The tiniest of smiles worked its way into the corner of Bess' mouth.  "You mean that?" she asked.  He nodded most emphatically and she was given hope.

"Stay here, Bess.  I promise, I will change."

She didn't move from the living room as Morgan wearily went to their bedroom to pack some clothes, his heart breaking a little more with every passing second.  Done packing, he walked back out into the main hall.

He was hoping desperately that she would come to him and lay a gentle hand on his arm, telling him to stay.  Telling him that they could work it out together.  But she didn't come and he had no choice but to leave.

 ***

Light years away, a Terrian moaned.  It could see the tendrils of chaos spiralling away from one single event, an event which wasn't supposed to happen the way it did.  The Link needed to be born yet he hadn't been therefore the chaos would continue.  Entropy could only win out in the end.

The Terrian cried, knowing that his world was doomed yet again.  And this time, there would be no last chances.

 ***

"Citizen Heller, welcome."  The voice seemed innately insidious but any qualms over a person's tone had long been quashed deep inside her.  Julia Heller, M.D., was one of the Council's rising young stars.  After ending an affair with Dr. Vasquez several months ago, Julia had attacked life with a new energy and quickly achieved a status that the shy young girl would never have reached.

Now she not only had brains and beauty, she had power.  And Julia Heller was one person who knew how to use it.

She listened carefully as the offer was made, mindful of suppressing her excited emotions.  Her status would only be injured if they saw how much she wanted this.  It was insane, what the Council was proposing to her, but it was incredible at the same time.  And she couldn't believe they were offering the position to her.

Julia understood that the job would be fraught with dangers - that was why the Council was sending one of its younger, less-experienced citizens.  It wouldn't do to have an 'important' person die.  But the risks were probably a lot less than they first seemed, and just think of the prestige she would earn if everything went exactly to plan!

"I'll have to consider this for a while," Julia said crisply, maintaining an outward show of professionalism.  "I'll let you know my decision as soon as possible."

"See that you do, Citizen Heller," replied the Council member.  "Let me remind you that this is the opportunity of a lifetime and there is no shortage of people ready to take your place."

"Understood," she replied with a slight nod of her head.  She shook hands with the man and exited the secretive office.

People stared as Julia marched through the corridors and she knew why.  With her hair piled elegantly on top of her head and wearing an expensive suit, Julia appeared every inch of a woman who had the world at her feet.  Which now, Julia reflected, she literally did!

G889.  A planet twenty-two light years away, and she would be one of the first to see it.  She would be the one in charge of the advance mission to set up a colony ready for the Council citizens and their families to follow.

Of course, she'd been told, she would have to share command with someone from the military, to make up for her lack of experience in that area.  Julia didn't mind.  Once they arrived and the planet was declared safe, the natural administratorial duties would inevitably fall to her.

Julia allowed herself a small smile.  Even though she'd been chromo-tilted to fulfil a doctor's career there wasn't any reason why she couldn't do both.  That fact was highlighted by her recent achievements away from the medical field.  She couldn't be more satisfied with herself.

The only problem was that she couldn't tell anyone about it, not even her family.  Well, Julia reflected, that wouldn't exactly be a problem.  Secrets were common in the Heller family and the sharing of emotions was discouraged.  As a result of this, Julia didn't have any friends but she never stopped to think anything was missing from her life.  She was successful, she was going to be rich, so what did she care about friends?

Respect, and fear, were what Julia craved now.  The Council was taking its own away from the stations and the life that was predicted to degrade into anarchy unless drastic changes arose in the next twenty years or so.  Getting away to G889 was their insurance that they, technically the human race, would go on.  The population back on the stations could rot, for all the Council cared.

Julia, too, was beginning to feel this way as the cold seductivity of control worked its way into her heart.  She'd always been called an ice-queen.  Now she finally could fulfil her destiny.

 ***

Morgan waved one arm in the air, hoping to attract the waiter's attention.  "I need annutha drink..." he slurred.  Despite his earlier resolutions, Morgan hadn't been able to start anything that night.  It just hurt too much.  So he decided to go have a few drinks, to take the pain away.

"Sir, I believe you have had enough for tonight."  The waiter's tone was polite but firm.

"No I haven't," Morgan whined.  "I wannanother scotch."  His voice had grown significantly louder.

"I am sorry sir, but I cannot serve you anymore."

"I Want A Drink!" Morgan bellowed.  Another waiter materialised beside the table.

"Sir, we must ask you to leave."

Morgan stared at them angrily.  Leave?  He was only just getting started, he'd only had....  Looking at the array of empty glasses on his table, Morgan realised he could no longer count them.

A brief whispering ensued between the two waiters and one finally asked, "Can you tell me your address so that we can get you home safely?"

"I don't have any home.  My wife kicked me out."  Now Morgan's tone was petulant and childish.  "I hafta stay here."

"Sir, we must insist-"

Another voice cut the waiter off.  "Let me handle this," it said, and Alonzo Solace slid smoothly into the chair opposite Morgan.

" 'Lonzo!" he managed.  "When did you get in?"

"Oh, about two hours ago," replied Alonzo, smiling at his old friend.  They hadn't seen each other in three years.  "I decided to come down for a drink and then I see you here."  He paused, taking stock of Morgan's inebriated state.  "Are you okay?"  Alonzo had overheard Morgan's earlier comments about his wife but preferred to let the man tell him himself.

Morgan sunk his head into his hands.  "Bess made me leave," he moaned.  "She threw me out onto the street."

"Oh," was all Alonzo could think of to say.  He glanced around, noticing that the waiters were still watching Morgan closely.  "Listen, Morgan, I think it's time we left."

"But I've got nowhere to go," he protested.  Morgan had completely forgotten about the hotel he'd checked in to earlier.

Alonzo sighed.  "You're coming home with me, okay?"  He mentally reviewed his hotel room and figured that Morgan could sleep on the couch - it was certainly large enough.  "We'll figure out some more stuff in the morning."

"Okay," Morgan readily agreed, glad to having someone taking charge.  Without Bess around he really didn't know what to do.

The walk was short, but Alonzo purposely took Morgan on a circuitous route to clear his head a little.  It appeared to work - Morgan gradually seemed more coherent and became steadier on his feet.   Alonzo didn't really mind that Morgan kept falling into him, both men found the contact strangely comforting.

Coffee was the first thing Alonzo got for Morgan when they finally reached his spacious hotel room.  Alonzo made a lot of money as a pilot, mostly because the job was one not many people would take.  When he was station-side, he could afford to live it up.

"What happened to your unit?" Alonzo finally asked.  He was rewarded with a stony stare from Morgan.

"Bess is living there.  And she doesn't want me there too."

"And Bess is...?"

"My wife."  Morgan scowled.  "At least, I thought she was my wife, but we had a huge fight today and one of us had to leave.  That was me because she's from Earth and she doesn't have anywhere else to go."  It wasn't the most flattering of descriptions but Morgan was drunk and compelled to take his frustration out on Bess.

Alonzo, having never met Bess, was already angry with her.  He pictured a conniving woman who had married Morgan for nothing more than his money and then thrown him out on the street once she'd gotten what she wanted.

"I'm sorry, man," he offered and patted Morgan on the shoulder.  Morgan just sighed.

"I thought she loved me!  But she doesn't anymore.  She just kept picking on me for no good reason."

Desperate to make Morgan feel better and get him away from the clutches of the evil wench, Alonzo said, "Women are like that.  They feed you lines about wanting commitment but it always busts up down the line.  That's why I always try to leave first - it stops the entanglements later on."

Alonzo paused.  "Who needs them, anyway," he grunted sourly.  Alonzo had been burnt by women more times than he cared to count.  Somehow, his flyboy reputation had spread amongst the stations.  Last stop he'd met a wonderful woman called Lydia, who seemed just perfect for a week-long fling.  They'd had some great times together until things began to get ugly.  She'd betrayed him.  She'd flaunted him like a piece of meat.  She'd used him.

And once Alonzo got over the humiliation, he was furious with her.  He'd made a vow never to go near another woman again.  He was sick to death of the whole dating game anyway.  Now it seemed like Morgan was too, for he was nodding in complete agreement.

"You're right," Morgan said.  "No woman would ever go out with me before Bess."

I wonder why, Alonzo thought to himself sarcastically, but then suppressed the thought.  So Morgan was a weenie sometimes - at least he was Alonzo's friend, and a true one at that.

"Bess just reeled you in like a willing fish," Alonzo said darkly.  He stared hard at Morgan, a possibility which had been hovering on the edge of his consciousness gradually worming its way into his mind.

Placing his head in his hands, Morgan said, "I loved her!  She was everything to me!"

"And now?"  Alonzo's tone was low as he brought Morgan a second coffee and joined him sitting on the couch.  He watched Morgan carefully, feeling an old yet strangely familiar stirring inside of him and wondering how Morgan would react to a certain suggestion....  It had been so long that Alonzo's memories were fading and he was a little nervous.  He knew the risk was great - he faced losing a friendship forever - but the rewards were even better.

If only he could predict Morgan's reaction...yes, the man was drunk, and Alonzo didn't want to take advantage of him, but still....  
   
 

"I don't know if I love her," Morgan replied darkly.  Staring at Alonzo, hard, he swallowed nervously.  Thinking about Bess and the love he thought would last forever, thinking about how wrong he was.  "I don't know about anything much anymore."

"But you're learning all the time," Alonzo said softly.  His voice was almost seductive and Morgan blinked in surprise, wondering where that thought had come from.

"Every moment of every day you learn more about how cruel the universe is," Alonzo continued.  "How hard it is to trust anyone, how hard it is to love someone."  It seemed Alonzo had discovered this a long time ago and his heart, his true, inner heart, had been frozen since then.

"And worst of all," Alonzo's voice was almost a whisper and Morgan had to lean close to hear it, "you discover that no one wants to love you."

Morgan nodded, almost imperceptibly.  "I was blinded by lust," he realised.  "She didn't love me.  She didn't even care about me."

"I care about you, Morgan."

Alonzo moved closer, so that a mere inch separated their faces.  "Have you ever been kissed by a man, Morgan?"

Too dazed to speak, Morgan said nothing but his eyes, locked into Alonzo's gaze, spoke volumes.

"I could teach you things," continued Alonzo in a definitely seductive voice, "that would prove to you that women aren't the answer to everything...."

Still Morgan was silent and Alonzo took that as an invitation.  He moved forward the last inch, closing the gap between them and forever sealing Morgan into a new path of destiny.  Morgan's heart rate skyrocketed when he first felt the gentle pressure of Alonzo's lips on his own.

Being kissed by a man was like nothing Morgan had ever experienced before.  There wasn't a soft sweetness, it was rougher, more explosive, more exciting.  And despite the inner warning bells, Morgan found himself kissing back.  Hungrily, ferociously, giving in to the desire and letting passion sweep him away.  He felt Alonzo's hands on the back of his neck, his waist, caressing him gently and easing him back onto the couch.  He didn't fight it.  He didn't want to.  Alonzo was taking the pain away.

Morgan just hoped he wouldn't regret this night for the rest of his life.

 ***

 

As the years passed, John Danziger was at a complete loss.  He couldn't go back in time and he sure as hell couldn't go forward at any great rate.  He was forced to watch his history happen again, but this time with a twist.  Danziger had managed to keep tabs on his friends from the Eden Project - Devon was dead, Julia was a Council prodigy, and as far as he could tell, Morgan and Alonzo were living together.  That was a development Danziger had never suspected.  He wanted to get back to G889 more than ever now, simply so he could rag on them.

There weren't that many changes in Bess' life, other than the loss of Morgan which could be considered a good thing in Danziger's prejudiced opinion.  Yale had vanished completely soon after Devon's passing, and Danziger suspected that he had been 'destroyed'.  He didn't like to dwell on that thought too much.  Even Baines was in a mental institution for the chronically disturbed.

And as for himself - his other self - the man was working much the same jobs Danziger remembered.  The only difference was the absence of the Eden Project and any real chance of a decent future for either himself or True.

True.  He missed her so much, more than he missed anyone else, even Devon.  His daughter had been part of his life for so long and she was suddenly gone, taken by G889's destruction.  More than once Danziger wished he'd brought True with him - if only he'd been able to reach her before the earthquake....

It was becoming more and more obvious to John Danziger that not only his own personal life, but everything, was going to hell.  And he was still stuck there, almost a ghost from another reality, forced to exist in this warped situation.

Initially, Danziger hadn't seen any way out of the situation.  He was unfamiliar with the scientific theory behind time travel and endeavoured to study it.  The thing he found most useful was a twentieth century phenomena called "Star Trek".  It explained time travel in a straightforward manner and so what if it bent the rules on many occasions?  Danziger's own presence on the stations proved that these rules governing linear time were meant to be broken.

There were only two ways to end Danziger's predicament - to die (and that was something Danziger would not even consider) or to travel back in time again and try and fix whatever he'd done wrong.  The only means of time travel was on G889.  Which meant that Danziger had to get there somehow.

He kept his ear to the ground and created a vast network of contacts.  It was incredible how a person could live for almost ten  years on the stations, completely undetected by any form of authority, but John Danziger had managed it.  Slowly but surely, Danziger began to hear the rumours.

The Council was supposedly planning a mass exodus to a hidden location and Danziger was fairly sure he knew exactly where that was.  He was surprised that the news wasn't a little more public, but with no Devon Adair to do the advertising, secrets like this would remain concealed.

Finally, Danziger approached Julia.  It was the only thing he could do.

"Yes, Mr. Zolo?"  She emphasised his name, somehow injecting disgust into her tone, almost as if he were some filthy creature that needed to be destroyed.

Danziger didn't mind.  After all, it wasn't his real name, although he'd thought it pretty good when he first selected it.  Dan Zolo, not too close but not too far either.  It prevented him from having any association with the other John Danziger currently out in the quadrant.

"I know about planet G889.  And I want in on it."  He'd decided some time ago that it was best to go straight to blackmail.

Julia's eyes narrowed.  Inside, she was wondering just how such a drone had managed to come across the sensitive information and vowed to find, and punish, the informant.  But she could not show any of this emotion to the man standing in front of her.  "I have no idea what you are talking about.  You're wasting my time."

"I think you do know what I'm talking about," Danziger countered, leaning across her desk in an aggressive fashion.  "And I think you're scared that I know."

Julia was mute.

"Now let's try this again, okay?"  It wasn't really a question.  "I know about G889.  I know that the Council is planning to move its own there and leave the rest of the population to struggle on the stations.  I know that planet G889 is the best chance the human race has for longevity and I know," he paused enticingly, "that if this news gets out then you will have chaos."

Swallowing, Julia finally conceded, "You may be right.  But what's to stop me having you thrown in prison on charges of conspiracy and sedition?"  Smiling, Julia was confident she had regained the upper hand.  But she hadn't counted on the stubborn will of John Danziger.

"Let me just say that if I disappear, the news certainly won't, in fact, it will be out faster than you can stop it."

"Oh really," Julia responded drily.  "What do you want from us, Mr. Zolo?"

Danziger didn't hedge, he came straight to the point.  "Passage to G889.  And beyond that, nothing."

"You think we can find room for you just like that?"

"I'm a mechanic," Danziger quickly replied.  "I can work my way on this trip.  I'm hardworking, trustworthy, and I get the job done."

Julia surveyed him carefully, sensing that he was telling the truth.  For an older man (he was now in his fifties) he certainly had a lot of determination.  She admired that in a person.

"I haven't yet finalised the Ops crew," Julia remarked in an offhand tone.  "A little rotation here and there and I believe you could be on board as a mechanic.  But-"  Julia held up one hand before Danziger could get too excited, "it seems as if I'm sticking my neck out for you.  What are you willing to do for me in return?"

Danziger stared blankly at her.  He owned nothing of value, didn't have any special skills, about the only thing he had was foreknowledge of G889 and he couldn't reveal that without sounding like an escaped lunatic.  "What do you suggest?" he finally asked.

Almost secretively, Julia leaned forward over her desk.  "You seem to be good at finding out things you're not supposed to know."

Danziger nodded.

"That means," Julia continued, still softly but with the air of one supremely in charge, "that your actions are undetectable."

"I'm not going to be your own private hacker!" exclaimed Danziger, picturing Julia asking him to break into restricted Council files.

"No," countered Julia evenly, "you're going to be an assassin.  There has been a military commander assigned to the G889 mission.  I've met him and I don't like him.  If you, Mr. Zolo, come with me to G889, then you will get rid of this commander once we make planetfall."

Had Danziger not been so shocked at the heartlessness of this Julia, he would have laughed aloud.  If only Julia knew that O'Neill was doomed to die anyway - he had in the previous two realities, so why not this one as well?  "And that's the price of my ticket to G889?" Danziger double-checked.  He feigned indecision to keep within his character.

Nodding, Julia said, "Do we have a deal?"

"Yes," Danziger replied firmly.  They shook hands and then Danziger once again retreated to the underworld.  He was highly amused by the crew manifest presented to him several days later - a very different crew but there would still be a Danziger present, just under a slightly different name.

He couldn't wait to leave the stations behind.  Almost ten years had driven him crazy.

 ***

She was clad in black from head to toe.  Tight, black leather pants, a slim-fitting top, and her hair pulled back into a black cap.  Bess Martin had never worn anything like this before, but then again, she'd never undertaken terrorist activity before either.

Months of praying that Morgan would come back to her eventually turned into a righteous anger and then a desire to lash out at the world.  Bess still seethed when she thought of her ex-husband but her new friends had convinced her to turn that fury elsewhere.  Towards the Council, where it belonged.

Bess had been at a loss those first few days after Morgan left.  She'd noticed that he'd run to an old friend of his, a pilot or something.  She had only realised the truth that it was over when she had purposely run into him in the mall one afternoon.

"Bess!" Morgan had gasped when he saw her approaching.  He'd swallowed nervously, obviously tense.

Bess had smiled softly.  She wanted the reunion, soon.  It had been good for her to spend time away from Morgan - it gave her a chance to realise that she loved him regardless of his annoying little habits and she was pretty sure that he loved her too.

She gently touched her hair, glad that she had dressed for the occasion in a pretty dress, the type Morgan loved to see her wearing.  "How are you, Morgan?" she began innocently.

"Um...ah...fine," he stammered.  "What about you?"

Bess' face saddened.  "I miss you," she said straight out and grabbed his hands.  "Morgan-" and she paused, briefly looking around, "can we go somewhere private?"

He turned purple, he actually turned purple.  And that was when Bess knew that something was very, very wrong.  Ice crept down her spine.  "There's a cafe nearby, we can get a private booth and talk," she offered.  She didn't give him a chance to say no and dragged him down the street.

Once they were settled, Bess got straight to the point.  "I want you to come home, Morgan," she smiled softly, trying to convince herself that nothing was wrong.  "I've been lonely without you.  I'm sure you've been lonely too."

Morgan, at this point, was unable to make any sound other than a strangled kind of cough.  Bess patted him on the leg, almost an intimate caress, and he jumped sky-high.  "Have you been missing me?" she said provocatively.  Months of practice had taught her the best way to reach Morgan's heart, not to mention other parts of him....

She watched him carefully, wondering just what was running through his mind.  He couldn't possibly be - embarrassed, could he?  Bess knew that Morgan Martin was not the type to go out and pick up a woman for a one night stand, and as far as she knew, he didn't have any close female friends to run to.  He couldn't possibly have cheated on her.  She kept telling herself this over and over.

Leaning in close to him, she whispered, "I love you."  There was no response.  Morgan continued staring straight ahead, a traumatised expression on his face.

"Morgan, do you still love me?"  He did, he had to, Bess was sure that she could see it in his eyes.  And she sensed how much he wanted to say yes.

But slowly, painfully, his lips formed around the words that Bess never wanted to hear.  "It's over, Bess."

What?  "No, Morgan, it can't be!" Bess said desperately.  She grabbed his face and forced him to look directly at her. "What is it - have you found someone else?"

His heart said no, no one would ever replace Bess, but his mouth said, "Yes.  You don't deserve me, Bess.  Just leave and forget that we ever met.  I'll make sure you're okay - I'll pay-"

Bess stood up, fury in her eyes, and she slapped Morgan Martin across the cheek.  She had her pride, even if she had nothing else.  "I don't want your money," she hissed.  "I wanted you.  I guess that's all in the past now."  She strode out of the cafe, holding her head high.  Only much later that night did she allow herself to cry.

Bess had kept her word - she had cut herself off from Morgan.  He kept trying to make alimony payments but she refused them, preferring to support herself.  If he didn't want her then she certainly wouldn't keep herself attached to him.  The only people who would hire Bess, an Earth girl with few skills to esteem herself in the eyes of the station-bred, were the immigrant workers.  The pay was lousy, the conditions worse, but Bess made some real friends.  These people, the poor, were somehow a lot more real than the business associates Morgan had called their friends.

She wasn't happy but she was surviving.  Bess mourned for Morgan for a long time, wondering exactly what had gone wrong.  The truth was finally revealed when she saw Morgan one evening, purely by coincidence, walking arm in arm with another man.  The pilot, his "friend" and obviously so much more.

That had hurt the most, the final proof that he had betrayed her. The turn of events was something Bess would never have guessed and she suspected that the pilot had a lot to do with it - pushing Morgan in new directions and suggesting a different lifestyle.  And Morgan, who found it so difficult to make decisions, had probably gone along with it all.

This made Bess mad.  Mad at Morgan for not having the backbone to stand up for himself; or mad at Morgan for leaving her if that was what he had truly chosen.  Bess Klempt (she had reverted to her original name) became a very angry young woman with no outlet until her new friends had come to her with a suggestion.

It was Baines, a handsome dark man whom Bess secretly had a crush on, who first introduced Bess to the underground.  Baines himself had been institutionalised for a few years by the Council, unofficially because of his very vocal political opinions.  When he was finally released, he had learnt to keep quiet and made underground connections.

The secret society consisted of only twenty people - it was rumoured that there were groups on the other space stations but contact was dangerous - but together, they'd infiltrated Council intelligence.  They had learned that the Council was planning to abandon the stations once a suitable replacement world was found.  And they were determined to stop them.

So that was where Bess was now, hiding in the shadows near the suspicious ship.  It didn't have a name, nor did it have an official station record.  What it did have was equipment to support over a thousand people and supplies for a journey of some distance.  Bess was there to stop it.

Her gear buzzed softly and she activated visual, seeing Baines' face appear before her.  "I'm at the rear airlock.  Heading in now."

"Affirmative," Bess replied and crept down the corridor, planning to follow Baines in five minutes.  He had bombs to plant, her job was sabotage in case the bombs were discovered.  The ship seemed strangely empty for only twenty-four hours before launch time, if their intelligence was correct.  Then again, a mission as secret as this would probably have the barest skeleton crew aware of what was going on, the others would find out at the last minute.

Quickly, Bess completed her work.  As she had been so carefully taught she reconfigured the computer readout so that it would report that everything was fine.  The only way to notice Bess' careful work would be to go outside the ship into space - after the problem was discovered.  And by then it would be too late.

Moving away from the command module which could be separated from the bulk of the ship, she heard a curse erupt over her gear.  "Bess, out.  Now!"  She didn't hesitate, knowing that if Baines said to leave then it was in her best interest that she did.  To her horror, she heard the unmistakable sounds of weapons fire.  Baines had been discovered.

Bolting down the corridor to the exit, Bess knew there was nothing she could do for her friend except spread the word about the Council's actions.  It might not save Baines from the law - after all, he had been caught actively performing terrorist activities -  
but she could save him from a quiet disposal.

As she raced for the safety back in the depths of the stations, Bess watched the live feed over gear.  Baines had been cornered, with several men standing around him with mag-pros pointed.  Baines, too, had a weapon, a small device that was a bomb trigger.  "You come near me and this goes off," he snarled.  Bess was so proud of him - she knew what a coward he was at heart and wondered if he was doing this to impress her.  She sent him a silent kiss.

A short, blonde woman strode into Baines' field of vision.  Her face was hard and her eyes blue steel.  "There is no way out of this," she said crisply.  "Give yourself up."

"I'd rather die first," Baines spat.  The woman visibly sighed.

"You are making things very difficult."  She assessed him coolly, her eyes cold and calculating.

Bess watched Baines with fear in her heart, willing him to make a bargain.  "You're not leaving the stations," Baines said.  "This can't be a Council operation.  I demand that you take free citizens!"

The woman smiled at him, Bess could tell it was supposed to be a comforting smile but it sent chills down her spine.  "You may be right," the woman conceded.  "Free citizens deserve as much as a chance as anyone else.  This mission, it has been kept secret within the Council because we don't know the viability of the place we're going to.  We want to protect the general population."

Coming closer, the woman continued, "Damaging this ship will only damage your own future, don't you see that?"

Baines didn't believe a word of it.  "This bomb goes off unless you tell the public about the mission and remove the Council control."

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that," the bitch (as Bess now thought of her) said sweetly.  She took another step towards Baines.  "We can end this now, my friend.  Let me take you with us and you can see that it's for the best."

"Don't believe her!" Bess wanted to scream but she kept silent, not wanting to disturb Baines.

Baines hesitated.  And in that moment, Bess knew that he had lost.  More than anything, Baines wanted to get away from the stations.  He wanted to get married and have a family and bring them up somewhere safe, somewhere free from corruption and station imprisonment.

"I have a friend," Baines finally said.  "She knows everything."

"She can come with us too," the woman smiled evilly.  "If you like, you can call her here now.  Just give me the location of the bomb and then we can sort everything out."

A war was raging within Baines, between his righteous fight for equality on the stations and the sweet seduction of a life far from here.  He was absolutely petrified, courage had never been his strong point, and finally, Baines crumbled.  "Okay," he finally whispered.  "Bess, are you still on?"

"Yes, Baines," she replied sadly, hoping that he was only feigning submission so that he could later escape.  She knew he didn't want to die and blowing up the bomb was the only option other than compliance.

She saw him extend his hand and give the trigger device to the blonde woman.  She caressed his cheek.  "There, that wasn't so difficult now, was it?"  Not waiting for an answer, the bitch motioned to the guards.  "Escort our guest to my office.  I have a few calls to make."

Baines' gear was turned off and that was the last Bess ever saw of him.  A few days later, his body was found floating in space; evidently he'd been thrown out of an airlock.  And the ship they had fought so hard to stop was gone.  The bomb had failed - a minor explosion in space had been noted on the news but that was all.  Even when Bess tried to go to the authorities she was ignored and later warned away.

Bess' life was in ruins.  And the only one who could save her, a man she didn't even know, was bound for G889 a trillion miles away.

 ***

Home.  That was the first feeling Danziger had as he stood by the ship's viewport and looked out into space for his first glimpse of G889.  Twenty-two years had passed by in a flash and finally, he was home.

He wondered just when had he begun thinking of G889 as his home.  Initially, he had rejected it, especially its natives.  Danziger had never intended to stay, much less feel drawn to this place above anywhere else in the universe.  Yet, by an inexplicable somehow, G889 had become his home.  He was so glad to be back.

Patting his jacket just to be sure it was there, Danziger resumed his pacing of the corridors.  They had about half an hour until the ship would crash.  Danziger had tried to warn Julia and then O'Neill but neither had listened, they'd insisted that the bomb sweep they had conducted after the near-miss was sufficient to prove that no more dangers lurked.  Danziger wasn't so sure and carefully watched each crew member for signs of the would-be saboteur.  He noticed no one.

Maybe they wouldn't crash this time.  Nonetheless, Danziger was prepared.  He was dressed in the same outfit he was wearing that day so long ago when he was taken from G889, right down to the socks and the warm hat in his pocket.  It seemed appropriate, somehow.  And if he managed to get back to his real time and correct reality, he wanted as few disruptions to the timeline as possible.

Of course there was still the problem of his having aged, but Danziger figured he could work around that.  It was a small price to pay for having his happiness returned.  
 

Danziger wandered up to the bridge again, wondering if he could talk the pilot into conducting a scan of the area to see if the same asteroid was around.  A middle-aged woman was flying the ship - she wasn't the easiest person to get along with but she did her job.

"There isn't much activity in this system," the pilot replied, making Danziger glad he was being taken seriously for once.  "A couple of comets, maybe an asteroid or two...there's one that'll fly past the planet in about a year but it won't come close enough to cause any damage."

"You sure about that?" Danziger quickly asked.  He was given the affirmative and he grimaced.  Seemed like there had been no way to predict the ensuing chaos, even if the Council was in control of the entire mission.  It made him feel a little better.  The only way to save G889 was through Uly.  Danziger could only hope that the Terrians could show him the full story, clearly this time.  He wasn't a dreamer but he was their last chance.

Right on cue, the ship began to shake.  Danziger gave a slow lazy smile and leaned back against the wall, just savouring the moment.  Everything was going exactly as he expected.  When the sirens began to scream, his heart-rate quickened and he was glad there was no True to try and save this time.  Instead, he began herding people towards the escape pods as best he could, knowing that there was no way to stop the ship from going down.

Danziger was more amused than angry when a skinny Council guy sealed himself into Pod 2 and took off without anyone else.  Shaking his head, Danziger almost sauntered to the final pod, grabbing the pilot on the way and then buckled himself in for the ride all the way down.

When the screaming had stopped (Danziger only now recalled that Baines had competed with True for the best set of lungs on the first trip so long ago) he was the first to approach the hatch, beating even O'Neill.  Without any heed to the warnings of the others and the icy orders from Julia, Danziger threw it open and stepped outside.  Home.  Where he belonged.  Things could finally be set right and this circular insanity would end.

 ***

Julia Heller smiled secretly to herself when she heard the shouting.  She had sent Danziger and O'Neill on a short mission a few hours earlier, telling Danziger that this was what she had hired him for.  From the sounds coming from outside her tent, Julia surmised that the job had been done.

She was quite pleased about this, having been unsure if Danziger would actually come through for her.  The man had a strangeness in his eyes - he tried to hide it, but Julia could see through anyone - and there was a sense of complacency within him that unnerved her.  He wasn't even fazed by the evidence of alien life forms who had stolen their cargo.

Julia pushed herself away from the table and walked outside.  As their only doctor, she supposed she would have to pronounce him dead.  She wondered what method Danziger had used - probably not a mag-pro because the evidence of that would be too hard to conceal.  As long as it wasn't something obvious.

She shouldn't have worried.  "A creature," explained Danziger.  "It shot him with its claw and he just keeled over."

"Oh really?" said Julia, unable to resist injecting a note of skepticism in her voice.  She wanted to see Danziger sweat.  Yet to her disappointment, he seemed to be telling the truth.  He'd fulfilled the bargain without getting his hands dirty and that just made Julia annoyed.

Julia wanted to bury O'Neill right away and be done with it.  For some strange reason, Danziger protested.  He came up with a lame excuse about O'Neill's cultural belief that the body should be lain beneath a tree for three days while the spirit escaped to the afterlife.  Not believing a word of it (Julia had certainly never seen the pair talking) she was persuaded by the other members of the group to abide by Danziger's wishes.  She didn't like that one bit and realised that she potentially had a new enemy....

Deciding she would watch Danziger carefully, Julia announced to the group that they would travel on foot across the continent to their destination, New Pacifica.  She expected some opposition from Danziger but none was forthcoming, and the other group members were used to obeying orders.  And off they set.

As the months passed, Julia realised that Danziger was more of an asset than she'd ever imagined.  He seemed to innately know things about the planet, sometimes it appeared that he could predict the future.  He wasn't alarmed when O'Neill came crawling back, nor was he surprised when the maniac Gaal intruded on their campsite and accidentally killed O'Neill.  Thanks to Reilly orbiting above, Julia soon learnt that Gaal was a penal colonist and dealt with him appropriately.  Julia didn't like unexpected visitors.  She left Gaal's head on a pike as a warning to the Grendlers, although she supposed they ate him later.  Danziger suggested they had a craving for blood.

It was Danziger who led them to the biosphere where they spent the winter.  Danziger who taught them how to forage for food.  Danziger who kept them sane as they travelled through the blackout zone with no help from Reilly.

Julia owed that man a great deal.  And with his helpful suggestions, she was able to disable the virus that infected the Eve system and caused Reilly's image to also become deranged.  Reilly himself was not very pleased about that.

The group paid little attention to the Venus class spacecraft out in the desert and left the hapless scientists safely frozen.  Their time there seemed to have a strange impact on Danziger, once they were healed he still had an irrevocable picture of sadness on his face.  Julia often asked him what was wrong and he always replied nothing.

They were becoming closer every day, but Julia kept reminding herself that she had to keep him close so she would know if he ever decided to betray her.  And on Danziger's part, well, he would never be devoted to her like the others were.  He seemed to take little interest in anyone except for Julia herself, and then it was only suggestions on how to be a nicer person.  Julia snorted.  What was the point?

Summer approached and with it came strange visions.  Of the past, the future, and times in between.  Julia even saw herself once, wrapped in a passionate embrace with the typical tall, dark and handsome man.  She'd laughed aloud at that one.  As if she'd let any man sweep her off her feet.

The first earthquake came the day the group passed what seemed an insignificant mountain, but when they entered it they noticed that the whole place was lit up like a fairy castle.  Julia studied the tunnels, hearing the eerie sound of the transportation tunnels and warning her crew to stay well away.  She'd left Danziger back at camp, wary of what he might do because he'd become noticeably agitated and apprehensive in recent days.  He kept talking about the asteroid that was coming.

"This is where it all started, Julia," he said cryptically that evening when she had returned from her scout.  "This is where I first met you."

"The first place you met me?"  Julia's voice was tinged with sarcasm and she surmised that Danziger had finally gone round the bend, or he had severe heatstroke.  Whatever it was, it had gotten him talking and Julia was eager to learn as much as she could about his mysterious past.

"Oh, it wasn't really the first place I met you, it was the place where I met you you, the you that you are now."

"And which me is that?"

"The you that is cruel and dark."

Julia opened her mouth in surprise.  "Are you insulting me, Mr. 'Zolo'?"  The use of that name was a cruel jibe on her part - he had revealed a long time ago that it was an alias he used on the stations to escape detection.  He asked Julia to use his real name now that they were safely away from all that.  Devon Danziger.  He was right, it was a distinctive name.  He went by Danziger most of the time.

"Not insulting you," Danziger replied, a faraway gleam in his eyes.  "Just stating a fact.  You're hard, Julia.  Hard and uncaring.  I wonder what happened to you."

"Nothing happened to me," she snapped, just a little too quickly.  "I'm perfectly happy being in control of my life.  I have a lot more than you ever will."

"You're probably right," grunted Danziger.  "But once I had so much more than - this."  He gestured widely to the open plains.  "I had friends, I had love.  I made a mistake and I lost it all."

That explained what Julia had suspected - Danziger could only work as such a single operative if he had been hurt badly in the past and didn't want to risk future attachments.  Had he been fifteen years younger, Julia would have considered him a suitable consort.  As it was, they could only dance around each other and make mysterious statements.  Julia usually enjoyed the repartee.

She shrugged, watching him closely.  "That's why I never got attached to anyone.  Too much trouble.  It always ends in tears."

"Yes, but the rewards make it all worth it," replied Danziger.  He gazed up at the stars.  "I'm sorry you had to miss that.  I'm sorry I have to say goodbye."

"What do you mean?" Julia questioned.  "Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm going home," he replied cryptically.  "This planet is my home but the people are wrong.  You're wrong.  I have to go back and set things right."

Julia stared at him, for the first time in her life she was speechless.  What the hell was he talking about?

"You know," Danziger continued, "after all this I am going to miss you."

That Julia could understand, at least.  She was the only one he talked to, even if they had never had what could be called a true friendship.  They had been wary companions.

"There is good in you buried deep down.  I wish you had the chance to find it, but maybe you did in my world.  Yes, I know you did." He stood then and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek, the first sign of any intimacy between them.  "Goodbye, Julia."

She watched, stunned, as he left and walked towards the mountain.  He had just shown her the first kindness of her whole sorry life and she had liked it.  It made her feel special, it made her feel loved.  And in those few moments, Julia Heller, leader of the Eden Project, Council star and heartless bitch, knew a little of what she was missing.  It made her want to cry.

 ***

Back to the mountain.  The crucible, as Uly had called it so many years ago.  Uly.  Danziger could barely remember the sound of his voice.  He'd been gone for so long now....

Danziger stepped into the cave and it looked exactly as he remembered it.  "I'm here," Danziger called to the Terrians.  "I came back.  I need you to tell me what to do - I can't take this anymore!"  He dropped to his knees in the dirt.  "Please," he begged, "help me.  Help me save your world.  Help me save my friends."

A low moaning filled the air.  "I'm begging you!  Just one more chance - I'll do everything you tell me this time.  No hesitations, nothing.  Just give me this chance."

Finally, a Terrian broke through the wall.  Its hands outstretched, it beckoned 'Come' and Danziger willingly followed.

He saw Ulysses, laughing with Devon.  He saw the asteroid coming closer by the minute.  He saw himself with the sample of Uly's DNA and that was when he realised that it was all lost.  Useless.  Because Uly no longer existed.  There was no way Danziger could retrieve a sample of the boy's DNA in this world - the only chance had been even before he set foot on the stations the first time.

But the Terrians had pushed him into the tunnel, he wasn't given a chance!  Which meant that the Terrians had a sample, or...Danziger himself did.  "That's it!" he shouted in the dream and was shown more images.  Of himself, punching Brett, and suddenly he knew that the scene had always happened.  If he ever got back to his home reality he would have to ask Devon about it.

And then he saw the rest of the story and learnt the true secret of Uly's heritage.  He was astounded.  He saw how Uly's life was a neverending circle - he saw the two snakes entwined, representing two worlds joined forever.  He saw them eating their own tails, a cycle that could never be broken.  He knew.

The Terrians released Danziger and he smiled.  He looked down, checking his pockets.  He was in the same outfit he'd been wearing a lifetime ago on that day when they discovered the mountain the first time.  And in his pocket was that same hat he'd loaned to Uly the night before, returned to him by Devon in the morning.  Danziger had stuffed it in his pocket and not given it another thought - until now.  Almost reverently, he pulled it out and held it to the light.  Nestled deep within it was one fine, curled hair that wasn't Danziger's own.  It belonged to Ulysses Adair.

The hair quickly disintegrated as Danziger moved it through the air but that didn't matter.  Not if he was going where he thought he would be.

"Thank you!" he shouted to whoever was listening.  Danziger turned back to the Terrian.  "I won't fail you this time.  I promise."

He looked around one last time and then, without hesitation, jumped back into the transportation tunnel and was whirled across space and time.

 ***

Every bone in his body ached.  He was an awful lot older than the last time he'd undertaken such a journey.  Yet Danziger didn't care how much he hurt.  He had a job to do.

He glanced quickly at his surroundings and knew instantly where he was thanks to his time spent on this particular space station.  Now he had to move fast - it was mid-evening and he had to reach two of himself before it was too late.  (His fourth self was safely out in the Quadrant and of that, Danziger was very glad.)

Danziger found himself creeping along behind young Danziger who was, in turn, following Devon and Brett.  When an opportune moment arose, Danziger quite simply crept up behind the younger man and hit him over the head.  He didn't want to hurt himself but it was the only way.  Danziger then stuffed the unconscious man in an alleyway, tying him up as best he could with his jacket (they both had an identical jacket wrapped around their waists).

That was one down, Danziger told himself.  If everything went to plan, the man he had just trussed up would never know what had happened to him.

On to Danziger number two, the first one which had been thrown to the stations.  Old Danziger lay in wait beyond the corner where his younger self was watching the altercation between Devon and Brett.  He heard the words of pain, he saw himself rush out and pound Brett.  Oh, that was a good memory, one of very few he had since leaving G889.

The sound of Devon's voice sent chills down his spine.  She had been gone for so long and some small part of Danziger had begun to accept the fact that he would never see her again.  Yet there she was, just around the corner, young, vibrant, healthy, and with her whole life ahead of her.  Danziger wanted nothing more than to see her one last time, one simple glimpse was all he asked.

But he couldn't.  He wouldn't.  So much was at stake that he had to put the longings of his heart aside and know that he, at least, would never be with Devon again.  She belonged to his younger self on G889.

Danziger heard the heavy footsteps approach and tensed.  This was it.  He glanced behind him, seeing the glowing tunnel entrance open and coalesce into shape.  He had to prevent himself from going through it at all costs.

His other self rounded the corner and Danziger took a deep breath.  "Hello," he said plainly.  Young Danziger gaped.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked.

"I'm you," Danziger replied.  "And I have something important to tell you."

The younger man was obviously suspicious.  "Okay, I'll admit that you look like me but you're not.  This has got to be some Terrian trick, a warped dream they're giving me...."

"No," interrupted Danziger.  "I thought exactly the same thing when I was your age.  How wrong I was," he mumbled almost to himself, shaking his head with regret.  "You have been brought here for a purpose, John Danziger, and if you don't fulfil it then everything will end."

With his arms crossed defiantly, the younger Danziger said, "I'm not injecting Uly with Terrian DNA.  It's not right."

Sighing, Danziger admitted, "I said the same thing to myself so many years ago.  But that's not it."  He walked up to himself and reached into the younger man's pocket, pulling out the hat.  "See this strand of hair?" he asked, holding it up and gladly noting how strong and firm it seemed.  "This is the key to what you have to do."

As Danziger explained the task that lay ahead, he could see his younger self was still filled with doubts.  And he knew the feelings, understood them implicitly, because this man was whom Danziger had been in the past.  "Do you understand?" he finally asked.

Younger Danziger nodded gruffly.  "I - yes, I do.  It doesn't mean I agree with it though."

Danziger laughed wryly.  "You can't not do it.  It's already been done by you - by us - in the past.  It will be done again by one of us in the future.  It's part of a cycle that can never be broken; if we had never done this in the first place the Uly would not exist."  Pausing to take a breath (for he felt suddenly weak) Danziger continued, "It's not our place to judge if it's right or wrong.  What's done is done.  And Uly was created."

It seemed that younger Danziger finally understood what was being asked of him.  "Why didn't the Terrians just show me what I had to do in the first place?" he asked.  "Why bring you here to tell me this?"

"Because you don't trust them.  Remember your initial reaction?"  The man nodded.  "You don't even know if you're dreaming right at this moment, but I can tell you that this is real.  What you do now will make a difference.  And somehow, the Terrians knew that the only way you could be convinced to do this was through me - I'm your living proof, I'm the only one who can convince you because I am you.  I've been through hell and believe me, you don't want to experience it.  This is the only way," old Danziger implored.  "Trust me."

Young Danziger stared at his counterpart.  He could see the shadows in the man's eyes, he could sense the raw pain within him.  "What happened to you?" he finally asked.

The older man pressed a small VR chip into his hand.  "I made a recording.  I'm entrusting it to you - you can decide if you ever want to share it with anyone."

"But what's going to happen to you now?"

Danziger smiled enigmatically.  "That's the part of the story that I don't know," he said.  "All I know is that my adventure is over.  It's your time.  Will you do as I asked?"

Younger Danziger nodded.

"And one more thing," he added wearily.  "Devon.  Tell her the truth."

"What truth?"

Old Danziger smiled wryly, remembering how he, too, had denied it for so long until it was too late.  "Tell her that I love her."  He hadn't seen her for years and he knew he would never see her again.  But he wanted her to know.  "Tell her that you love her."

Younger Danziger reached out to firmly hold his counterpart on the shoulder.  "I will," he vowed.  Someday...

"Thank you," said Danziger and then, quite simply, he disappeared.

And everything changed.  The man tied up in an alley down below vanished too, the story twisted.  The old Danziger was gone and the torch had been passed on to the younger Danziger who had the final chance to save everyone.  The cycle began once again.

 ***

"Dr. Julia Heller?" Danziger asked tentatively.  The reserved teenager looked up from her duties and smiled shyly.  She saw a tall man with bristly, dark hair and a matching beard, but beneath all that hair there were two piercing blue eyes.

"Um...I guess that's me...but I'm not quite a doctor yet."  She stood and motioned Danziger inside the room.  "What can I do for you?"

"I need you to trust me," he said straight out.  "I can't tell you who I am and I can't tell you where I'm from, but I desperately need your help."

Surprised, Julia stared hard at the man who had just come in to the hospital.  She had a part time job there, unpaid, but it gave her plenty of experience she was sure would be useful in the future.  The man had a kind face on him, decent and honest.  As she scrutinised the visitor, Julia felt that she could implicitly trust him and decided to do so, no matter what he asked.

"What is it you want?" she asked, and thus began a new friendship.

Oh, they fought at the start, almost horrific screaming matches as Julia raged about how unethical the whole situation was.  It was quite good for her, Danziger told himself.  There was nothing Danziger could really tell Julia, for he wasn't going to reveal her own future to her.  It was bad enough that he was even speaking to her, but he rationalised that his disguise and ten years would prevent her from remembering him when they met up again on the Eden Project.

In the end, Danziger had to revert to scare-tactics and pretended to be a high-ranking Council member on a covert mission.  It pained him to do so but there was no other way.  From Ulysses Adair's own DNA strand Julia created a clone, a tiny, tiny baby who was less than a quarter of an inch long.  And he was beautiful.

Danziger never told Julia the purpose of the baby, nor did he reveal his name.  And when Danziger kidnapped Devon to bring her to Julia, he kept Devon's face carefully covered.  Devon, being unconscious the whole time, never knew what happened.  She didn't even miss the few hours she'd been gone, because Danziger had drugged her evening drink and Devon woke up the next morning with a slight headache and that was about all.  Except for the baby that was suddenly growing inside of her.

"I want to thank you so much for your help," Danziger said sincerely to Julia when it was all over.  "You can't know what this means to me."

"I know that some poor woman is going to have the shock of her life when she finds out she's pregnant," Julia said darkly.  Danziger only shook his head.

"No," he revealed.  "She'll be delighted.  It will be the best thing that ever happened to her and we have you to thank."

"You're sure about that?" Julia asked.

"Positive.  I must leave now, Julia.  I'm headed to the outer stations, I don't believe we will meet again."  Danziger paused to give her a quick hug.  "You have a wonderful future ahead of you.  You'll be a doctor before you know it."

She smiled, hoping inside that he was telling the truth.  Her future, the great unknown, stretched out before her yet this strange man, Mr. Zolo, had almost promised her that everything would turn out all right.  "Goodbye," she whispered.  He saluted and left.

 ***

She was pregnant.  Oh God, she was pregnant.  Devon pressed her hands against her mouth and fought the impulse to scream with shock.  She was pregnant.  How could this have happened to her?

Literally, Devon did not have a clue.  She stared down at her abdomen which had a tiny bulge and smiled.  There was a baby, a real live baby, inside of her.  And without a doubt, she knew it was hers.

Devon giggled.  It was utterly insane.  People didn't just mysteriously get pregnant, they had to have sex first (which Devon never had), or go to the doctor and pick out a suitable father's profile.  But obviously not in Devon Adair's case.

She didn't know what to do.  How could she possibly have a baby?  She, Devon Adair, who had a million accounts to juggle and business partners to woo!  Why, she was rich and famous, she didn't have room in her life for a child, she didn't need a baby to feel complete.

And what would she tell everyone?  How would her family react?  As Devon looked down again, smoothing one hand over her stomach, she suddenly realised that she didn't give a damn.  This was her baby.  This was her life.  She had suddenly been given an incredibly precious gift.

Yale, she would tell Yale.  He would understand.  Maybe he would even leave her parents' house and come and help her out.  There was so much to think about!

Devon Adair couldn't wait to embark on this, perhaps the greatest adventure yet of her still young life.

 ***

"You have done it before, you are doing it now, you will do it again...."  The Terrians' cryptic message finally made sense to Danziger.  He watched Devon from afar, thinking about how much she meant to him.  Maybe he even loved her like he'd been told.  But all of that could wait until he got back home.

Devon was walking with a jubilant bounce in her step - she had just been to visit the doctor and obviously all was well.  Danziger knew in his heart that baby Uly was on the way.  Everything was as it should be.

Only his presence on the stations didn't fit.  And even as Danziger thought these words, he felt a tremor from a place far beyond.  G889.  In danger.  It was time to go back.  He turned, saw the sweet shimmer of a tunnel, and took a deep breath.  His clothes - fine.  There'd been a sneaking suspicion that morning that today was the day and Danziger was glad he'd trusted his instincts.

His hair - still a little short, but at least it was its normal colour again.  Danziger decided that black hair didn't suit him one bit.  All that was really different was the knowledge Danziger would be taking back with him, and the hope.  He'd aged several weeks but that was insignificant in the greater scheme of things.  Patting his pocket Danziger felt the tiny bulge of the VR recording.  It didn't belong in this time either.  He wondered if he could ever bring himself to watch it again.  Seeing the pain that his future self had endured had left Danziger greatly disturbed for several days.  Life as he had known it had completely fallen apart, but it was the only way to learn the answers to the questions that plagued them all.  Yet could he ever, ever tell the others?

This was a question Danziger knew he would have to answer someday.  But that could wait.  He had a train to catch halfway across the galaxy.  He had an entire world to save.  Danziger jumped forward and the universe changed.

 ***

Morgan screamed.  He was drowning - cold, black water seeped over his head and every time he lunged up for a precious breath of air, another wave would smack into his face and fill his lungs with water.  This was agony, he was going to die....

And strong hands gripped the back of his neck and pulled him from the water.  Morgan gasped.  He realised that it was only his head that had been underwater, the rest of him lay sprawled out away from the salty pond in the underground cavern.

"You've got to be more careful of how you land," Alonzo quipped, although Morgan could tell that his scrape with death had made Alonzo more worried than he let on.

He stared at Alonzo and suddenly, the strangest feeling came over him.  Almost as if he knew the man intimately, somehow.  Morgan shivered but the bumps on his arms weren't caused from the chill of the water which dripped from his hair down his back.  Alonzo, too, was staring intensely back at Morgan.  It was like they'd both shared the same dream and were suddenly remembering it....

The ground rumbled.  "We have to get out of here," Alonzo said quickly, remembering the impending arrival of the asteroid.  "This isn't where we started and I think we should leave as soon as possible."

Morgan quickly agreed, trying to purge the disturbing feelings from his mind.  They raced for the only transportation tunnel and then stopped for a moment, staring at each other.  They knew the risks.  They knew how easy it was to get separated.

Not giving Morgan any chance to protest, Alonzo suddenly grabbed Morgan into a familiar (why familiar?, Morgan wondered) tight embrace and leapt into the tunnel, away from the cavern that was about to collapse.  This time, they had survived.

 ***

"Danziger!  Someone was shouting his name.  He groaned, the full force of being thrown twenty-two years in both space and time beginning to hit him.  "Danziger, are you alright?"

Julia.  He remembered now, they'd been talking in the cave when the Terrian pushed him, a lifetime ago.  "I'm fine," he managed to respond, slowly realising that he lay on the other side of the tunnel from where Julia stood.  He unsteadily got to his feet, struggling to recall what was going on when he left.

Julia sighed with relief.  "I don't know what Devon would have done if we'd lost you as well."

And then Danziger remembered Alonzo and Morgan.  He'd been so wrapped up in the Devon/Uly quest that he'd almost forgotten his other missing friends.  "How long was I gone?"  Danziger asked.  "And any word from the others?"

"No word," Julia replied sadly, "and you weren't gone at all.  As far as I could tell, you fell straight through that tunnel and we're just lucky it didn't take you anywhere."

"No, Julia," Danziger said fervently, "I was taken away.  To the stations.  I saw things - I did things, that you wouldn't believe!"  He skirted around the tunnel until he was standing in front of Julia, and pulled her into a warm embrace.  "I missed you," he said gruffly, remembering the young frightened woman who had been his friend.  But she hadn't been Julia.

Julia accepted the hug, obviously a little perplexed at his behaviour.  "I'm glad you're back," she replied mechanically.  "Now could you tell me what happened to you?"  She broke off, noticing the sudden shortness of Danziger's hair.  "And your hair!"

Self-consciously lifting a hand to his head, Danziger said, "Oh.  That.  Listen, I can explain it all later, but I really need to get back to camp.  I need to see Uly-"

At Julia's blank look, Danziger felt his stomach drop to his feet.  "Oh no, don't tell me...."

"Why Uly?" Julia asked.  "He was looking a little pale so Devon's kept him close all day."

"He's alive?" Danziger asked quickly.  Julia nodded, bemused.  "He's okay?"

"As far as I can tell, there's nothing wrong with him."

"Good," Danziger replied decisively.  "He shouldn't have any more problems at all."  He paused, thinking of other friends who had been changed in old Danziger's tale and noting happily that Julia seemed to be herself.  "How is Yale, and Devon, and-"

"Relax, John," Julia smiled.  "Everyone's fine.  It's the planet I'm worried about."  'And Alonzo,' was her unspoken plea.  "We experienced a short earthquake as you fell backwards; I guess you didn't notice."

"That's right," he gasped.  "The asteroid."  Danziger began to move towards the tunnel entrance when Julia caught his arm.

"Wait, are you okay?" She gently probed his cheek, noticing a large purple bruise beginning to appear.

Danziger swatted her hand away.  "I hit a rock when I landed, I'll be fine.  I have to get back to camp!"  With that he raced from the cave and bolted all the way back to the campsite.

"Uly!" he bellowed as soon as he got back.  "Uly!"  He believed Julia, he really did, but Danziger wouldn't be completely convinced that everything was all right until he saw the boy with his own two eyes.

Uly came from the tent, closely followed by Devon.  Danziger carefully looked him over.  He was exactly as Danziger remembered, the boy who was, essentially, his own father.  Not able to help himself, Danziger opened his arms and pulled both Uly and Devon into a huge bear hug.  "It's so good to see you, both of you," he breathed.

Devon gave Julia a quizzical look over Danziger's shoulder.  Julia was about to shrug when the ground trembled and caused everyone to sway dangerously.  Danziger pulled back, his face displaying grave worry.

"Uly," he began, "I need you to be a man for the next few hours.  Can you do that for me?"

The boy solemnly nodded.  "The Terrians need me, don't they."

"Yes," Danziger replied.  "Something very scary is about to happen but I know if you do your part, Uly, then everything will be okay."

"John, what is it?" Devon asked.  He motioned the three of them to sit down and began to explain about the asteroid and the Terrian power circle that Uly had to complete.  Danziger told them that G889 would be destroyed if Uly wasn't there and they all had to be strong because the chaos was very near.

Devon frowned.  "Who told you all of this?" she asked.  Danziger couldn't possibly answer that question, it was his older self who had told him.  Instead, he said, "The Terrians.  With Alonzo gone, they reached out for me."  He cringed, realising he'd just insinuated that Alonzo was dead.  They had died in the other timeline and Danziger was hoping desperately that it was different this time.  Yet he had no such guarantees, for they were still missing.

After his heartfelt reunion with True, Eden Advance spent the next few hours discussing Danziger's story in amongst the growing rumbling from the ground.  The effects were much more pronounced with the asteroid's increasing proximity.  Danziger even saw another time-slip but kept carefully quiet about it.  He didn't think Bess wanted to know about the future christening of her and Morgan's child.  Which meant that the alternative lifestyle Morgan and Alonzo had chosen on the stations wasn't going to happen here.  Danziger was suddenly glad, because that meant a lot less broken hearts.

In a day that seemed to stretch on for eternity, Uly was finally summoned by the Terrians.  All of Eden Advance followed towards the mountain, they had nothing else pressing to do and had been told by Danziger that their survival depended on the next few hours.

A long, drawn out moaning filled the air.  "The Passing is near," Uly intoned, suddenly the wise Link rather than a little boy.  He sank into the earth only to reappear moments later at the top of the mountain.  A circle of Terrians rose around him, bordered by a final row at the base of the mountain, not too far from Eden Advance.  Two circles of power now surrounded one small boy, the key to it all.

Devon shivered and Danziger placed an arm around her shoulders.  He understood she was more worried about her son than the fate of the planet.  "He'll be okay, Dev," Danziger soothed gently.  "He's a strong kid."

"But what if he isn't strong enough, what if the Terrians ask too much of him?"

"They won't," Danziger reassured.  Only he knew that the Terrian part of Uly had always been there, to be activated immediately upon arriving on G889.  The Terrians had perpetually known that Uly was coming, that was why he'd been taken and healed so quickly.  He was always one of them.  "Look," Danziger said in a hushed voice.

The Terrians raised their staffs as Uly raised his own.  A circle of energy spread like wildfire around the two circles, finally channelling to the central point and Uly.  In tandem, a maelstrom of dark clouds gathered above the mountain.

Hearing a cracking noise behind her, Devon instinctively turned.  A fountain of rocks suddenly threw themselves into the air and in that, Devon saw the dying face of Elizabeth Anson.  She remembered Elizabeth's eerie warning.  "The planet will reject you."  Or had that been "eject you?"  The latter suddenly seemed all the more comprehensible in Devon's mind.  G889 was tearing itself up.  She shook her head, wondering if she'd just experienced a time-slip but then the shaking sensations drew her back to the problems at hand.  Devon was afraid.  
 

True screamed and pressed close to her father as he wrapped his other arm around her.  Danziger reflected that they were almost like a family - he with his wife and daughter to protect.  At the thought Danziger managed a small smile.  Maybe someday....

The very planet trembled.  Rocks quavered beneath the surface, threatening to throw themselves upwards, but it wasn't anywhere near as violent as old Danziger had described.  Uly was holding it in balance.  A surge of power and light beamed upwards from the boy's staff, higher than the cloud cover, travelling beyond to the asteroid so near.

A huge crackling was heard as the opposing forces met, almost like north and south poles as Yale had hypothesised.  The asteroid was the north, wreaking havoc on the differently-aligned planet below.  Uly's channelled energy was south, quelling the destructive force.

Across the planet, other groups of Terrians stood around their own mountain-crucibles and added their power to the tendrils reaching into space.  Each additional strand of power helped fight the twisted magnetism and keep G889 whole.

"It's working, it's really working!" breathed Danziger.  Devon was too spellbound to speak.  Danziger glanced around, noticing that the ground remained flat, the earthquakes seemed to have stopped, the wind dying down.

And then Uly shuddered.

"Uly!" screamed Devon, seeing, with a mother's vision, the white face of her son suddenly crumple with pain.  "John, he can't hold it!" burst out Devon, facing him and willing him to do something.  "He's not strong enough, he's too small!"

Lightning ripped across the sky and temporarily cut into Uly's beam of light.  The planet screamed.  "I have to help him!" shouted Devon as she wrestled herself away from Danziger and began to run desperately towards the mountain.

"Devon!" shouted Danziger and quickly took off after her.  "Wait!  You'll get hurt, you don't have the Terrian abilities...."

She paid no heed to his cries, focussed on one thing only, getting to her son when he needed him most.  She could hear Uly cry in pain, his knees seemed to buckle and he sank to the ground while still fighting to keep the staff above his head.  The mountain trembled and huge boulders broke from one cliff face, wiping out any stray plant life below.

Devon reached the perimeter of Terrians, momentarily pausing.  If she continued she would be running straight through a circle of electricity.  In that second, Danziger caught up and grabbed her around the waist.  "It's not safe-"

His words were cut off by a huge earthquake that tipped the very ground to a sixty degree angle and threw both Devon and Danziger into the ring of light.

"Dad!" True screamed.  As far as she could see, her father and Devon were frozen into place, almost as if they'd been electrocuted and could not move out of the circle of power.  She began to run towards them, quickly followed by the rest of Eden Advance.  Tears began to slip down True's cheeks as the ground swayed beneath her - they were losing, G889 would be blown up, and her Dad was dead....

But the sight that greeted her eyes when True reached the perimeter of the circle was one of rapture.  Devon and Danziger's arms were linked and they were smiling.  Pure joy was on their faces, they weren't in pain, they were part of the great circle of the planet.

Hesitantly, and deliberately ignoring Bess' warning, True reached out and touched the light.  A feeling of happiness surged into her body from the brief point of contact.  "It's okay!" she yelled to everyone.  "I think we should go in, we'll be safe here!"

Without waiting for a response, True slipped in between the next pair of Terrians and was enraptured by the light.  Bess, watching fearfully, noticed that for a second as the girl entered the circle, the gale force wind slowed.  The trembling diminished.

"Come on!" she motioned to everyone else, now a True believer.  "I think this will help!"

One by one, the remaining members of Eden Advance nervously approached the circle.  Many were scared, but given a choice between the Terrians or a planet gone mad, they chose the Terrians.  As each gently touched the circle of energy at a vacant point, they were inevitably drawn in.

Only Baines and Bess stood out.  "Look, Uly's getting stronger," Bess said, her voice awed.  It was true, Uly managed to struggle to his feet again as the love of his friends merged with the Terrian energy.  "Are you ready, Baines?"

He shook his head, quaking with fear.  "What if we die?" he asked.

"We'll die anyway if we don't try," Bess replied gently.  She looked at the light and smiled, her face glowing.  She could feel it calling to her, and feel the love and support of her friends just waiting for her to step into it.  "Trust me, Baines."  Bess reached out one hand and Baines finally took it, knowing that Bess was perhaps the only one he could ever trust.

Together, they stepped into the light.

 ***

The energy surged stronger.  Uly smiled, he could feel them, every single one of his friends, everyone he knew and loved.  His entire family, both Human and Terrian, were a part of this circle now.  He could beat this, he knew he could!  He just needed a little more strength to stand tall.

The asteroid was almost at its zenith and Uly was trembling under the strain.  "A little more power," he trilled, knowing that everyone understood.  Especially the Terrians.  They granted his wish.

Morgan and Alonzo were suddenly spewed forth from the mountain into the inner circle.  After sliding through tunnels for hours, they had finally chosen the right one.  Hands firmly linked together, Alonzo and Morgan stepped forward into the light and were surrounded by the unbreakable link of friendship and love.

That was the final surge Uly needed, the contribution of two more friends.  He stood as high as he could, lifting his staff to the sky and willing the energy up, shooting it towards the stars with all of his being.  It was the most ferocious weapon against the duelling energies of the asteroid, this was a light of true warriors.  This was a light of true love.

The planet and asteroid sighed in tandem.  The destructive forces that were tearing them apart were finally quelled, all because of one small boy and his friends and an infinite circle of life.  With the light pulsating out from G889, the asteroid continued its safe passing, moving further away with every minute.  G889 lived.  
 

Several hours later, it was too far to have any more destructive effect on G889.  Oh, there would be time flashes for a few more months and a couple of random earthquakes, but the worst was over.  The shooting beam of light that had followed it so far eventually began to gently diffuse.

Uly lowered his staff, feeling very, very sleepy.  The glow of light that had surrounded him dissipated slowly and he watched the tendrils retract to their owners.  The inner circle was released first.  The Terrians simply sank slowly into the ground and Alonzo and Morgan were left there, holding hands, with bemused expressions upon their faces.

Strands of light wound their way back down the mountain, calmly, sedately, returning to their points of origin.  Eden Advance was finally released yet they stood there for a while, just staring vacantly at the top of the mountain.

Danziger was arm in arm with Devon, feeling as if he could stay there forever.  True was only a few feet away with her arms extended happily.  Beyond that were Bess and Baines, holding hands, then Julia, Yale, Walman, Cameron...everyone who was Danziger's friend.

The spell was only broken when Uly arose from the ground behind them, Alonzo and Morgan in tow.  Upon seeing her husband, Bess uttered a scream of delight and flung herself into his arms.  Tears streamed down her face as she kissed Morgan and he joyfully responded, so glad to be holding her in his arms again.

Julia's reunion with Alonzo was a little more restrained but no less heartfelt.  She hugged him fiercely and whispered low words of love that went something along the lines of, "If you ever leave me again...."

Danziger could only smile as he watched the happy couples, secretly delighted with the knowledge that Devon's arm was still linked with his own and she was making no attempts to move away.  "We did it, Dev," he whispered softly to her.  "It's over."

She turned to face him, a strange expression on her face.  Their eyes locked, the attraction that had been growing between them for so long suddenly burst into full flame.  A kiss now only seemed - natural.  Devon tilted her face towards him and Danziger gently brought one hand to the side of her face, caressing her cheek.  He bent his head forward, focussed on her slightly parted lips, so close....

"Mom!"  A shrieking child barrelled into Devon and she was knocked from Danziger's arms.  "I did it, Mom!  Me and the Terrians, and everyone, we all saved the planet!"

Devon glanced quickly at Danziger then looked away.  Her eyes had become unreadable.  She bent down to Uly's height and hugged him, telling him how special and brave he was.

Sighing silently to himself, Danziger looked around and found True watching him shyly, a half-smile on her face.  "Way to go, Dad," she said softly.  Danziger strode over and mussed her hair.  "You did good, True-girl.  I know you were the first to follow me in."

True shrugged indifferently.  And then Danziger pulled her close for a hug, joining the growing trend amongst the circle of friends.  This was the place for Danziger to be, after all he'd seen, he knew that only this set of circumstances was right.  They were all, forever, united.

 ***

 

"Mom?" Uly asked softly, exhausted by the day's events.  He crawled into his bed, snuggling down into the soft blanket even though it was really too warm to need such a covering.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Today was a good day, wasn't it?"

Devon smiled, not quite sure if she would call it good.  The outcome had been good, they'd prevented G889's destruction, but it had been terribly frightening in parts, especially seeing her son play such an integral part in it all.  "I suppose it was a good day, Uly.  You're growing up to be quite a man."

"Yeah," agreed Uly, sounding like a satisfied young boy.  "A man.  Just like, um, Mr. Danziger."  He wriggled around in his bed, trying to find a comfortable spot.

Devon hid a smile behind her hand, realising that boys often aspired to be like their fathers.  It was strangely comforting that Uly had chosen Danziger for this role.

Almost as if he had overheard her thoughts, Uly said, "I asked the Terrians who my father was but they kept showing me a picture of Auryn instead.  And then Yale said that the snakes are our rob or ross.  Do you know what that means?"

"Our rob or ross?" Devon repeated.  "Oh, ouroborous."

"That's what I said," Uly cheerfully commented.

"As far as I remember," began Devon, "it's a circle of infinity.  Something that goes around and around without beginning or end."  Pausing, Devon stared at her son.  "Maybe that wasn't the answer to your question," she said softly.  "Maybe the Terrians were trying to warn you about the asteroid."

Uly just frowned.  "Then who is my father?"  His innocent face held so many questions that Devon, finally, gave in.

"Ulysses," Devon said, very slowly, very carefully, "I don't know who your father is.  You were a gift, a wonderful, wonderful surprise.  I knew the moment I was pregnant that you were special, that you were meant to be."

"Oh."  Uly was silent for a moment as he pondered his mother's words.  "That's okay, I guess.  Not everyone has to have a father."

"No, Uly, they don't," Devon said softly as she remembered that strange time of her life.  She had exaggerated a little to Uly - it had taken quite some time for the shock to pass but after a while Devon had become completely convinced that Uly was right in her life.  Even his later diagnosis with the Syndrome didn't change a thing - he was her boy and destined to be.

He was her son and he was so special.  She didn't care where he came from because that knowledge wouldn't change a thing.  "I love you, Ulysses Adair," she whispered softly as she placed a gentle kiss on his forehead.  "Never forget that."  
   
 

Danziger sat quietly by the fire, completely at peace.  He didn't mean to overhear the conversation between Devon and her son but the soft words travelled far on this sultry night.  He smiled into the darkness as he heard Devon's explanation about Uly's heritage.

It was perfectly true, from her point of view.  Only Danziger knew the truth.  He smiled to himself in the dark, thinking about what a crazy story it made.  Julia was Uly's father, in a sense, for she had performed the operation.  Yet it was under Danziger's direction and supervision, so perhaps that made Danziger himself Uly's father.

And as for the cells that made baby Uly, well, they had come from Ulysses himself.  Which made Uly his own father.  But he was also Devon's son - tests had proved that.  Danziger's mind boggled just thinking about it.  He couldn't pretend to understand why it had happened that way but, as he sat under the beautiful moonlight of G889's companions, he knew it was right.  The asteroid had passed safely and the planet would be secure for another ten thousand years.  Next time, they would know it was coming and be ready for it.

Ouroborous.  A circle that could never be broken - Ulysses Adair going round and round in time.  Only G889 could have made such a thing possible and Danziger realised that he was beginning to love this planet.

He heard Devon kiss Uly goodnight and thought of her fondly.  Did he owe it to Devon to tell her what had happened?  Would she be outraged that she had been violated in such a way?  Or would she smile and tell him the story of her mystery saviour, as the other Danziger had been told?

Danziger now knew things, intimate things, about Devon Adair that he was never supposed to know.  It would be hard for him to keep the knowledge to himself but he would endeavour to do so.  There were no guarantees that everything in this Devon's life was exactly the same as that of her counterpart but Danziger surmised that most of it was true.  It certainly explained much of her behaviour towards him.

There were gentle footsteps.  Devon was coming out of her tent, possibly to join him by the fire.

Danziger stared into the dark, thinking of Devon, thinking of what she meant to him and wondering if they had a future together.  He certainly couldn't wait to find out.

 ***

Deep in space, an asteroid tumbled, over and over.  Sunlight randomly flickered across it, especially catching the two snakes  winking at each other, the universe, and the time beyond.  Auryn.

 ***

END.

 

   
   
   
   
   
   
 


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